Under the newly ratified Constitution, the outgoing Congress of the Confederation ruled that electors had to be chosen on the first Wednesday of January 1789, which fell on January 7, and that they would vote a month later. States read the rules differently. Some let voters choose electors and others left it to their legislatures. When the ballots were counted, George Washington had the vote of every elector who took part, and John Adams became vice president.
No one had ever held a presidential election before, and the machinery showed it. The Confederation Congress, which was about to disappear, set the timetable in September 1788. Electors were to be chosen on the first Wednesday of January, January 7, and would meet on the first Wednesday of February to cast their votes. Every state interpreted this its own way. Some held popular votes, some had their legislatures appoint electors, and some mixed the two.
Parts of the young republic were left out completely. North Carolina and Rhode Island had not yet ratified the Constitution. New York's legislature was deadlocked and chose no electors at all. The popular vote, in states that held one, came to only about 33,000.
The result was never really in question. All 69 electors voted for Washington, and no president since has matched that. Each elector also cast a second vote, and those were spread among other candidates. John Adams won the most of them, 34, which made him vice president. He took the job with open frustration, and it foreshadowed tensions the system had not yet learned to handle.
Key people: George Washington, John Adams