Leila's Lines- What If Neither Candidate Gets 270 Votes?

What happens if neither candidate gets 270 electoral votes to win?

If neither Trump nor Biden gets 270 electoral votes, the outcome of the election is passed into the hands of the House of Representatives. Each state delegation only has one vote. This means that the size of states does not matter; Texas’s vote will count the same as Delaware’s vote. Twenty-six votes from the House of Representatives are needed to win the presidency. State House delegates are allowed to cast their vote only from the top three candidates (the law was made before the elections really became a two-party-focused election).

Electors would meet on December 14th to cast their vote: the first Monday after the second Wednesday of the month. It is important to note that only about half the states have laws which require State House delegates to cast their vote on behalf of the state’s popular vote. Therefore, there could be “faithless” voters, people who vote not in accordance with their state’s popular vote. The current split in states’ parties is 26 Republican states-23 Democratic states with Pennsylvania as a tie. So if state electors voted along their state’s party lines, the GOP would be in the lead.

Congress would meet on January 6th, 2021 to count the electoral votes. In the event that neither candidate get the majority of votes, the House and Senate elect the President and Vice-President, respectively. The new congress (sworn in on January 3rd, 2021) is responsible for making these decisions.

All of these procedures are included in the Twelfth Amendment contingency clause: “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.”

Has this ever happened before?

Contingent elections have only happened three times in American history: 1801, 1825, and 1837. In 1800, both Aaron Burr and Thomas Jefferson received the same amount of electoral votes. During this time, the contingent election was to decide who would be President and who would be Vice President. In 1824, the electoral votes were split between four candidates: Andrew Jackson, John Quincy Adams, Henry Clay, William H. Crawford. Despite Jackson winning the popular vote, Adams won the contingent election and thus presidency. In 1836, “faithless” electors from Virginia didn’t vote for Martin Van Buren’s Vice President nominee: Richard Mentor Johnson. This refusal led to a contingent election since no one received the majority of votes.

Spread this information on social media!

I have designed easy-to-read and aesthetically pleasing slides that social media users can conveniently repost in order to spread the wealth about the election.