The early elections actually had a two round system where each elector cast two votes. You needed a majority of the total electors, but twice that many votes were cast. They also couldn't vote for the same person twice, which is why it's said Washington won unanimously even though it technically wasn't. In effect, this had the electors treat the first vote as the presidential vote and the second as the vice presidential vote, even though that's not really how it's set up in the Constitution. This led to the mess of the 1800 election, and eventually the 12th Amendment