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December 14

House presidential election (U.S.) — tie within a state?

In the event that the Electoral College does not cast a majority of votes for any one candidate, the election of President of the United States gets sent to the House of Representatives, where the representatives vote by state blocs, as per the Twelfth Amendment to the Constitution. But what happens to a state's vote should its representatives be split evenly? (For example, say Pennsylvania's delegation is split 9–9 when the roll is called.) My reading of applicable law does not address this. Did I miss something? → Michael J Ⓣ Ⓒ Ⓜ 00:36, 14 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

As far as I can tell, that state doesn't cast its vote. The Constitution does not prevent the House from being unable to choose a candidate. See Electoral College (United States)#Joint session of Congress and contingencies. If the House can't agree on a President by Inauguration Day, the vice president-elect chosen by the Senate becomes acting president until the House chooses a President. If neither the House nor the Senate elect a candidate, the Speaker of the House becomes acting president. --47.138.163.230 (talk) 02:11, 14 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

That's correct, the state doesn't cast its vote. It's happened once, in 1801. Because the 12th Amendment had not yet happened, two candidates intended to be running mates ended up tied in the electoral vote in 1800 and the House had to choose between them... and neither one stepped aside in favor of the other. Well, in the House balloting, there were several cases of tie votes within a state. (One other election has gone to the House but there were no ties within a state that time.) --76.71.5.45 (talk) 07:55, 14 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Someone asked the same question recently - with the same resulting lack of certainty. The House hasn't had to decide it since something like 1877, and it would take a whole mess of faithless electors to trigger such an event this time around. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 02:16, 14 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Fewer than in most all but 7 or so elections. Trump's so-called electoral vote landslide was something like the 48th largest margin. --jpgordon^{𝄢𝄆 𝄐𝄇} 05:16, 14 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

It would require 38 defections for Hillary to win, or at least for Trump to not win outright. So far something like 9 have talked about it. So it's unlikely to happen. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 06:31, 14 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Well, it would actually only take 37 electors to refuse to vote for Trump to throw the election to the House of Representatives. He has 306 pledged electors right now, so 306-269 = 37. And they don't have to vote for Hillary for that to happen; they just have to vote for anyone except Trump. The last time the House selected the President, as noted above, was United States presidential election, 1824. In 1877 the decision wasn't made by the House, but rather by a special Electoral Commission which decided to award the contested electoral votes to Hayes. --Jayron 32 17:19, 14 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Yes. Trump has 306 and Clinton has 232. If at least 37 switch their votss to someone else, no matter who, Trump could not win outright and it might go to the House. If exactly 37 switched to Clinton, it would be an exact tie, 269 each, and would go to the House. If 38 or more switched to Clinton, she would win outright. But the bottom line is that 270 is required to win, and if nobody has 270 or more, the House decides. It's not going to come to that, though. It's just wishful thinking. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 21:47, 14 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I see that since the system was changed in 1933 this year's electoral college vote will be on the latest possible day - 19 December - thus maximising the suspense. Does anyone know why the first Monday after the second Wednesday in December was chosen? These votes used to take place on a Wednesday - I suspect the Wednesday following the first Monday in December - thus earlier than today. My guess is that the date was chosen to be a few days after the completion of the popular vote, which until 1844 did not happen till early December. 86.141.140.240 (talk) 19:02, 14 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Most of the dates of the U.S. electoral process are enshrined in tradition from as time when people had to ride horses or walk to get everywhere, even to carry news. It took that long just to get all of the results in one location. There's no real reason why they couldn't get it all done in a week or so today; most other countries do it that way, and don't draw the process out over such a long period. --Jayron 32 20:57, 14 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Actually, there's at least one real reason why they need that much time even today -- it's to give enough time for a recount if needed! 2601:646:8E01:7E0B:513B:150E:775F:3834 (talk) 02:55, 15 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I don't know whether they could get it done a week, but CA spent more than 3 weeks counting absentee and provisional ballots (CA law gives them 28 days to report final numbers). Part of the issue is that CA is quite liberal about allowing the use of such ballots (you can vote absentee by mail without giving any reason why) and also quite annoying about requiring that someone review the signature associated with each submitted absentee ballot to verify that it is consistent with the signature on the voter's registration form. Of course, no one was in suspense about who was going to get CA's electoral votes, but I could imagine CA is not the only state with a process that takes weeks to play out. Dragons flight (talk) 14:30, 15 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I hope that for the provisional ballots, they don't only check the signature, but also check whether the person is a US citizen, of legal voting age, and not doing time for any felonies -- otherwise this amounts to legalized electoral fraud! 2601:646:8E01:7E0B:F88D:DE34:7772:8E5B (talk) 13:24, 16 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Provisional ballots are for people who are already registered to vote in CA but for whatever reason attempt to vote in a precinct other than their designated voting location. CA does not allow new registrations on the day of voting. Presumably, questions about age and citizenship are best handled at the time of voter registration rather than at the time of voting. I don't know how CA enforces their policies preventing felons from voting, but I would expect there would be some cross-checking there. Dragons flight (talk) 15:14, 16 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

The fairness of checking a signature against a voter registration form is questionable, since there could be many decades between the time an absentee vote is cast an the time a person registered to vote. The legal forms of ID to register to vote don't all indicate a voter's age, so election officials don't have access to a source for the voter's age, beyond the voter's say-so. This also applies to citizenship; non-citizens can legally obtain many of the forms of ID one may use to register to vote. Whether conviction of a felony disqualifies one from voting varies from state to state. Jc3s5h (talk) 14:28, 16 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]