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An Electoral College Tie? Goodbye Legitimacy of American Elections!

One of the more interesting political developments of my lifetime has been the increasing uncertainty in American elections.  It used to be over when it was over, but since 2000, you never really know.  Each side deploys hundreds of lawyers to the closely contested states (how do you get to be one of those?) and awaits the potential streetfight that may result from the words "too close to call."  A lack of legitimacy in elections is a staple of third-world governments, and it's a little disconcerting to see America slip toward that path in our collective zeal to see our side win no matter the cost.  Think 2000 was a fluke and those days are behind us?  Well, buckle your seatbelts:

"What really strikes you is how easy it would be for a tie to occur.  Take the 2004 map and switch Iowa, New Mexico and Colorado into the Blue column, which is what the poll numbers indicate.  Then, take New Hampshire and give it to McCain, which is what two recent polls suggest is going to happen.  There is your tie." (Washington Times article here.)

269-269.  An electoral college tie.  Apparently, it's possible under a number of different scenarios given the current toss-up states.  It's still not exactly likely, but can you imagine the possibilities?  You'd think they'd just break an electoral tie with the popular vote, but you'd be wrong! 

According to the constitution, the House would pick the president and the Senate the V.P.  Given the current make-up of each body, and assuming Lieberman would defect, this would leave us with President Obama and Vice President Palin (with Dick Cheney breaking the senate tie in Palin's favor).  

But this is not the most likely scenario.  A number of disputes remain about the process of a breaking a tie, including how many votes each state would get in the house vote (originally, they had only one each), whether the sitting or new congress would be the decider (constitution says "immediately," which suggests sitting, but a subsequent law sets up January 6th as the day for the vote, which would be the new congress), and one can assume, a number of smaller disputes about the result of each state similar to what we saw in Florida 2000.  The most likely scenario is an extended legal battle over one or all of these issues that would push us well past January 20th with an undecided election.  In that case, Speaker of the House Pelosi would become Acting President Pelosi.  From there, it's anyone's guess!

Constitutional procedure is a bit of a hobby of mine.  It's always interesting to see how these arcane procedures would apply in modern times.  But the prospect of a tie is truly terrifying.  I'm a fan of the electoral college, but I doubt it can survive any more blows, and this would be a big one.  It's fun to speculate, but let's hope this election is decided by November 5th, for the sake of our entire system's legitimacy.  

Full post as published by Nuts & Boalts on September 23, 2008 (boomark / email).