Friday, September 26, 2008

Electoral College Adventures - what if 269 to 269?

If you've played around with the RealClearPolitics Electoral map you'll know there are several scenarios where Obama and McCain might split the electoral vote right down the middle with 269 votes each. What you might NOT know is how this tie is broken. Yes, it's a congressional vote but not simply one vote per congressman which would almost certainly give an Electoral tie to Obama since the Democrats are unlikely to lose control of Congress. But wait... in this electoral tie scenario my understanding is that each *state* gets ONE vote per state congressional delegation and each Senator gets one vote. Making this even more unpredictable is the fact that it's not entirely clear if the old or incoming congress would vote though I think I read it would be the new congress as it's first act in office.

I haven't found a source yet that looks at all the current state congressional delegations to see if how they'd likely split in an electoral tie. Let's hope that piece of trivia remains ... largely irrelevant.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...


Every vote would be politically relevant and equal in presidential elections.


