This Nebraska newspaper story is mostly about the fact that Nebraska still lets each U.S. House district choose its own presidential elector. But the more interesting part of the story is in the second half, which discusses the odds that 2012 will see a tie in the electoral college.
Ties in the electoral college are the forgotten disaster waiting to happen. Most commentators who write about the U.S. House choosing the president forget about it. They assume that the U.S. House will only choose the President if there is a presidential candidate other than the Democratic and Republican nominees who gets electoral votes.
The electoral college had an odd number of electors until 1961, when the Constitution was amended to give 3 electoral votes to the District of Columbia. Ever since there has been an even number of electoral college members.
When the U.S. House chooses the President, each state gets one vote, regardless of its population.
A tie would be VERY interesting!
What is more interesting is the House would pick the President but the Senate would pick the Vice-President.
President Romney and Vice President Obama!!!
#3 The senate gets to choose between the top 2 VP candidates, so it would probably be Romney-Rubio, with Marco Rubio casting the deciding vote for himself as Joe Biden presides.
Could/Would a Civil WAR II be really interesting ???
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ABOLISH the EVIL time bomb Electoral College – one more of the EVIL compromises in the top secret 1787 Fed Convention by the EVIL robot party hack top oligarchs.
Other EVIL compromises – slavery (fugitive slave clause), 2 Senators per State, Prez veto.
Count the about 620,000 DEAD Americans on both sides in 1861-1865.
P.R. and nonpartisan App.V.
Uniform definition of Elector in ALL of the U.S.A.
#4 Why wouldn’t Biden win 53-47 outright for VP as Dems/Ind/Ind Dem have 53 in their caucus? Or is it the newly elected Senate that presides over the vote? And if that is the case it might be Biden casting the 50/50 tie-breaking vote for himself (see news on Senator Snowe’s retirement)
#6 It is the newly elected Congress. The reason the 20th Amendment set different days for congressional terms (January 3) and presidential terms (January 20) was so the new Congress would choose the president.
In 1789, Congress met on March 4; and it took them a while to get a quorum. They couldn’t take any official action, including counting the electoral votes until that happened. After Washington was officially elected, it took a few weeks to get to New York City where Congress was meeting, and his inauguration was not until June. Adams got to NYC first, so he was Vice President before Washington was President, and was actually presiding over the senate.
The Constitution sets terms of offices, but doesn’t set the dates of the terms. The 1st Congress decided that 2 years meant 2 years from March 4, so the start of congressional and presidential terms was March 4, until the 20th Amendment.
But Congress realized it would be a problem to have no president, so they provided that the outgoing Congress would count the electoral votes and decide the winners if necessary. They worked backwards from March 4, when the new President had to be elected by allowed time for the counting of the electoral votes, transmission of electoral votes to the capital, meeting of the electors in each state, and the appointment (by election or some other means) of the electors in each state, and arrived at a November date for presidential elections, which is why we have presidential elections in early November.
While congressional terms began in March, they typically did not meet then. Washington was not pleasant before air conditioning, and malaria and yellow fever were real concerns. So Congress would ordinarily convene in December of odd years (eg 2013), meet into the late spring of the even year), and then hold a 2nd session from December to March 3. Many of the representatives had already been voted out of office by the time of this lame duck session, and this was an issue in the 1801 election of Thomas Jefferson and the 1825 election of John Quincy Adams.
When there was a newly elected president, the Senate would hold over a few days to confirm cabinet appointments, but the House would be out of session.
It wasn’t until the 20th Amendment that this was fixed, by providing a small stagger in terms, moving the starting of terms to January, and also setting the meeting date to the start of the term.
The 12th Amendment says that a Vice President must receive a vote from a majority of senators to be elected, so I don’t think the outgoing Vice President has a vote (he might in any votes concerning the counting of electoral voters).
Jim,
Thanks for the history.
The possibility of a 50-50 senate is high in the next election. Seems like it would be a hugh kerfuffle if the presiding president of the senate (VP Biden)was not allowed to break a senate tie.
I suppose the Republicans could fight it and effectively put Speaker Boehner next in line. But then I’d imagine the senate would be turned upside down in legislative matters with many 50-50 senate ties being unable to be broken with no president of the senate (ie VP) in existance.
A 269-269 electoral vote split would be impossible under the National Popular Vote.
A candidate would always get at least the needed 270 electoral college votes, so the House of Representatives would never decide who will be president.
The National Popular Vote bill would guarantee the Presidency to the candidate who receives the most popular votes in all 50 states (and DC).
When the bill is enacted by states possessing a majority of the electoral votes– enough electoral votes to elect a President (270 of 538), all the electoral votes from the enacting states would be awarded to the presidential candidate who receives the most popular votes in all 50 states and DC.
Follow National Popular Vote on Facebook via nationalpopularvoteinc
Old Mar 4 date due to when the 9th State ratified the Constitution via Art. VII.
The nearly dead Congress of the Articles of Confederation picked the Mar 4 date.
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Uniform definition of Elector
P.R. and nonpartisan App.V
Fixed election dates in the Constitution.
Abolish the gerrymander U.S.A. Senate — with its many extremist blowhards from very small States.
Abolish the gerrymander Electoral College.
The loopholes in the 1787 Const are ALL F-A-T-A-L — just waiting for a party hack MONSTER to exploit them — See Hitler in 1933 exploiting the FATAL loopholes in the 1919 Germany Const.