By far, the post on Great Lakes, Great Times, Great Scott that has received the most attention is this one I wrote a year and a half ago in which I explained that if this election were to have produced a tie in the Electoral College, the Democrat would probably win so long as no seats in Congress changed hands in this election.
I wrote that post based on the composition of the 110th Congress. What's important to keep in mind, however, is that it is the new Congress, not the outgoing Congress, that officially (and nowadays ceremonially) counts the electoral votes and, if necessary, breaks ties in the Electoral College. In other words, if there was a tie in the Electoral College in this election, members of Congress elected in 2008 (and Senators elected in 2004 and 2006) would be the ones to break the tie.
Today, members of the Electoral College are meeting in their respective state capitals to formally cast their state's electoral votes for President and Vice President of the United States. Each elector was nominated by their party to vote for their candidates in the Electoral College if said candidates had won their state (or district) in last month's election. 365 electors are pledged to vote for Barack Obama and Joe Biden, while 173 are pledged to vote for John McCain and Sarah Palin.
But what if the Presidential candidates had tied? What if each had received 269 electoral votes? Well, chances are even greater now that Obama still would have won.
A reminder: Whenever no Presidential candidate receives a majority in the Electoral College (nowadays most likely the result of a 269-269 tie in the electoral vote), the US House votes to elect the President, while the Senate votes on the new Vice President. The twist is that while each Senator gets one vote for Vice President, in the House each state has just one vote.
So to get a good (but not necessarily perfect) idea of who would win, we look at how each state's US House delegation is divided in terms of partisan leanings of its Representatives.
Five states went from having Republican majorities in their Congressional delegation in the 110th Congress to having Democratic majorities in the 111th. Democrats picked up three seats each in Ohio and Virginia, two each in Michigan and New Mexico, and one in Nevada.
Democrats moved from a 4-4 tie in 2006 to a 5-3 lead in Arizona thanks to Ann Kirkpatrick. Walter Minnick's upset in Idaho means that very conservative state's delegation will have one Congressman from each party.
Unlike in 2006, the Republicans did pick up a few Democratic-held seats in 2008. One such changeover - which saw Kansan Lynn Jenkins defeat Nancy Boyda in a rematch of the 2006 contest which Boyda won - gave Republicans a 3-1 lead in the Kansas delegation.
The end result? What used to be a 27-20 lead for the Democrats in congressional delegations has now expanded to 33-15, with two ties.
So had the Electoral College Tied at 269-269 in this election, Obama would have won the vote in the House 33-15 had every member voted for their party's nominee. He still would have won had enough Democrats voted for McCain to cause seven states with Democratic control to go to McCain.
12/15/2008
Electoral College Tie Redux
8/07/2008
Bits of Tid: August 7, 2008
- I was re-elected Precinct Delegate on Tuesday - by one vote! More on that this weekend, hopefully.
- Neither Indiana (11 electoral votes) nor North Dakota (3) have been won by the Democratic presidential ticket since Johnson/Humphrey in 1964. Yet both are toss-up states in this election. And Obama is doing very well in McCain's home state of Arizona (10)! Add Texas (34), Georgia (15), Montana (3), and Alaska (3), and you have 79 electoral votes' worth of states that McCain can't take for granted.
- Oh, my.
- The DNC calls out McCain for his ties to the oil industry. Well worth visiting!
- Eighty-nine days until the election!
- Bad boy, bad boy, what'cha gonna do?
- Dwight Eisenhower:
"Only a fool would try to deprive working men and working women of their right to join the union of their choice."
More gems from Ike here.
6/30/2008
How Michigan could tip the election
Since Michigan was first given electoral votes in the 1836 election (before it even became a state!), only once has the Great Lakes State proven to be a deciding state in a presidential election. That is to say, only one election would have had a different outcome had Michigan's electoral votes been gone to the other candidate. That was in the hotly contested (and highly controversial) Hayes-Tilden election of 1876.
While many polls and Electoral College models put Obama as the current favorite to win this year's election, keep in mind that things can change very rapidly. Michael Dukakis led by double digits following the 1988 Democratic National Convention before losing by quite a bit that in November.
There is the very distinct possibility that our state will become the deciding state of the 2008 election. Here I outline some of the ways in which that could happen.
Here are the results of the 2004 election:
Now when we change the map a little bit, we see just how important Michigan will be. In each of the following scenarios, neither candidate has the 270 electoral votes needed to win the Presidency. Michigan's 17 electoral votes would be enough to put either candidate over the top; whoever takes the Wolverine State, takes the White House.
Obama wins Florida:
Obama wins Ohio and Iowa:
Obama wins Ohio:
Obama wins Iowa and Virginia:
Obama wins Iowa, Colorado, and New Mexico:
Obama wins Iowa, Missouri, and Virginia:
Obama wins Iowa, Ohio, and Virginia; McCain wins Pennsylvania
Then there are those cases where Michigan could make or break a tie in the Electoral College.
Obama wins Florida and Iowa:
Obama wins Colorado, New Mexico, and Ohio:
Obama wins Colorado, Missouri, Nevada, and Virginia:
Obama wins Florida, McCain wins Wisconsin:
There are many, many other possibilities which I haven't outlined here. The point is, Michigan will be very important in this election, and it just might be a deciding state in this contest. Therefore, what we do here in the next 18 weeks could very well determine the future of this country.
6/05/2007
2008 Electoral College tie would likely yield Democratic President
The US Constitution requires that the President and Vice President be elected by a majority vote of the Electoral College. Because the Electoral College has 538 members, a majority would equal 270. However, it is possible to have a 269-269 tie. Here are some ways in which a tie in the Electoral College could happen - and how it would be broken.
How a tie could happen
The states Kerry won in 2004 account for 252 electoral votes. We need 18 more votes to win outright, 17 more to tie. Here are just a few ways in which a tie mighty happen.
1. We win all of the states Kerry win, plus Iowa (7 electoral votes) - which Bush won by just a few thousand votes - and either Arizona (10) or both Nevada (5) and New Mexico (5).
2. We lose Wisconsin (10) but win in either Florida (27) or both Ohio (20) and Iowa.
3. We win Colorado (9), New Mexico, and Iowa, but lose New Hampshire.
4. We lose Pennsylvania (21) but win Florida and Missouri (11).
5. We lose Michigan (17) but win Florida and Iowa.
6. We lose Michigan but win Ohio, New Mexico, and Colorado.
7. We lose Michigan, New Hampshire, and Pennsylvania but win Florida, Iowa, Ohio, and either New Mexico or Nevada.
Casting and counting the electoral votes
So as you can see, there are a number of ways in which the two tickets can deadlock at 269 EVs apiece, many of which I haven't even mentioned. So what happens then? Some of you know exactly how the process works, but for those who don't, here's a synopsis.
1. November 4, 2008: When voters vote in presidential elections, they are actually voting for a slate of electors (usually nominated by state parties) who are pledged to vote for a specific Pres/VP ticket.
2. December 15, 2008: Those electors will gather in their state capitals to officially vote for the new President and VP on the Monday following the second Wednesday in December. In some states (but not all), it is entirely possible that one elector will vote for the candidates opposite the ones for whom they were pledged to vote, and thus break the tie.
3. January 6, 2009, or thereabouts: Shortly after the 111th Congress convenes, Congress will meet in joint session to officially count the electoral votes. If a candidate receives at least 270 electoral votes, they are elected.
4. If no candidate receives 270, however, Congress settles the matter. Amendment XII tells us how that would work.
...the House of Representatives shall choose immediately, by ballot, the President. But in choosing the President, the votes shall be taken by states, the representation from each state having one vote; a quorum for this purpose shall consist of a member or members from two-thirds of the states, and a majority of all the states shall be necessary to a choice. ...In other words, each state's House delegation gets one vote to determine who will become the next President of the United States, while each Senator votes for the next Vice President. This means that one can assume that a state's vote for President will go to the candidate whose party has the majority of Congress(wo)men from that state, while each Senator will vote alonmg party lines.
The person having the greatest number of votes as Vice-President, shall be the Vice-President, if such number be a majority of the whole number of Electors appointed, and if no person have a majority, then from the two highest numbers on the list, the Senate shall choose the Vice-President; ... and a majority of the whole number shall be necessary to a choice.
What this means for 2008/2009
So had the Electoral College deadlocked at 269 apiece in the 2004 election, Bush would still have been declared the winner, receiving the votes of 28 states to Kerry's 19 (assuming Vermont's lone rep, then Independent Bernie Sanders, would've voted for Kerry). However, thanks to the gains Democrats made in 2006, we now hold a 26-21 lead in delegations, with Arizona, Kansas, and Mississippi tied. (Don't ask me how those three states would vote.)
What this tells us is that providing the Democrats do not lose any seats in the House - or that any seats they do lose are in states where it wouldn't cost them the majority in any state's delegation - then we can likely expect a Democratic President in 85 weeks.
Many expect the Democrats to expand their lead in the Senate, winning at least the seat in Colorado, if not New Hampshire, Virginia, or elsewhere. Let's hope this happens, but if there's anything 2005 and 2006 taught us, it's that things can change quite a lot in a short time. (A one-seat majority is not much of a majority!)
Now imagine split control of Congress. Say the Democrats control a majority of delegations in the 111th House, while the GOP wins back the Senate. If they vote on party lines, this would result in a bipartisan split - a Democratic President and a Repub VP - the first time since 1801 that the two have been of opposite parties.
Then there are so many other intriguing possibilities. Ordinarily, a majority in the Senate equals 51 votes, but right now there are only 99 Senators because of the passing of Senator Thomas, so 50 is a majority. In Maine and Nebraska, the winner in each Congressional district gets one vote and the winner of the state as a whole gets two. Then there's the issue of faithless electors - which I barely touched on here.
Confused? I don't blame you. If I had my way, the Electoral College wouldn't exist. But since it doesn't appear to be going away anytime soon, I hope this gives you a better sense of what would happen in the event of a tied Electoral Vote.
Of course, I also hope that a landslide Democratic win will allow us not to have to worry about that.