The
Salt Lake Tribune has the story by Thomas Burr:
Under four distinct scenarios, each of them possible given recent polls, the United States may again hold an election for president and end up without one. The possibility of a tie vote in the Electoral College - leaving McCain and Obama each with 269 votes - may toss the decision of who is the next leader of the free world to the House of Representatives. Too far-fetched? Probably - though no more than the idea the president would be decided by one vote in the United States Supreme Court, as it happened eight years ago.
The presidential election has only once before ended up being decided by the House of Representatives, and that was in 1800 when Thomas Jefferson received the same number of electoral votes as Aaron Burr. The former, of course, became the nation's third president.
This year, about a dozen states are in play, many of them less-populated states such as Colorado, Nevada and New Mexico. And each state is becoming more and more important with polls showing the two major presidential candidates in a statistical dead heat.
A quick overview: It takes 270 electoral votes to clinch the presidency. If neither candidate reaches that threshold, no victor is named. The electors - Utah has five, chosen by the party who receives the majority of the vote in the state - would certify their results by 15 December, and unless one of the nation's 538 flip to another candidate, the decision would head to the House.
Stalemate scenarios
• Tie #1: Obama wins (2004) all the Kerry states plus Iowa, Colorado, and New Mexico, but loses New Hampshire.
• Tie #2: Obama wins the Kerry states plus Iowa, Nevada and New Mexico.
• Tie #3: Obama wins the Kerry states plus Iowa, Ohio, Nevada and New Mexico, and Nebraska's 2nd Congressional District*, but loses Michigan and New Hampshire.
• Tie #4: Obama wins the Kerry states plus Iowa, Ohio, Colorado and Nevada, and Nebraska's Second District, but loses Pennsylvania and New Hampshire.
Two states, Maine and Nebraska, split their electoral votes by congressional district. Maine's electoral votes are solidly Democratic in polls, but Nebraska's Second District is in play.
If there's a tie
Each state delegation in the House of Representatives gets one vote to choose the next president. If the electoral votes for vice president are tied as well, the Senate chooses the vice president.
Rico says, wait a minute, the House chooses the president, but the Senate choses the vice president? They
could split by party, and we
could end up with Rico's earlier suggestion after all:
The major shortcoming of the current system of electing the President is that presidential candidates concentrate their attention on a handful of closely divided "battleground" states. In 2004 two-thirds of the visits and money were focused in just six states; 88% on 9 states, and 99% of the money went to just 16 states. Two-thirds of the states and people were merely spectators to the presidential election. Candidates have no reason to poll, visit, advertise, organize, campaign, or worry about the voter concerns in states where they are safely ahead or hopelessly behind. The reason for this is the winner-take-all rule under which all of a state's electoral votes are awarded to the candidate who gets the most votes in each separate state.
ReplyDeleteAnother shortcoming of the current system is that a candidate can win the Presidency without winning the most popular votes nationwide.
The National Popular Vote bill would guarantee the Presidency to the candidate who receives the most popular votes in all 50 states (and DC).
Every vote would be politically relevant and equal in presidential elections.
The bill would take effect only when enacted, in identical form, by states possessing a majority of the electoral votes—that is, enough electoral votes to elect a President (270 of 538). When the bill comes into effect, all the electoral votes from those states would be awarded to the presidential candidate who receives the most popular votes in all 50 states (and DC).
So there would never be a tie in the electoral vote, because the compact always represents a bloc consisting of a majority of the electoral votes. Thus, an election for President would never be thrown into the House of Representatives (with each state casting one vote) and an election for Vice President would never be thrown into the Senate (with each Senator casting one vote).
The National Popular Vote bill has passed 21 state legislative chambers, including one house in Arkansas, Colorado, Maine, North Carolina, and Washington, and both houses in California, Hawaii, Illinois, New Jersey, Maryland, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Vermont. The bill has been enacted by Hawaii, Illinois, New Jersey, and Maryland. These four states possess 50 electoral votes — 19% of the 270 necessary to bring the law into effect.
See http://www.NationalPopularVote.com
susan