I have been traveling around the country, peeking into your windows at night and have come to the conclusion that each of you are sleeping too soundly. Apparently not everyone has the same combination of back pain and deep seeded paranoia that I have; so, with an impish grin on my face, I am taking it upon myself to force a little insomnia upon you.
While my hand-crafted tin-foil hat has many advantages (including a +5 to my wife thinking I am a dork), it is rather ineffective in shielding me from electoral college nightmares. Last night the newest individual state polling data was released; and with it, the nightmare that would be worse than having to sing karaoke with Cthulu, became a very real possibility.
Right now, if you give Obama and McCain whatever state they are leading in (we are talking the aggregate of the state polls) then the final electoral college count comes to 269 to 269.
A tie.
This really isn’t that far fetched a scenario. You don’t have to do a bunch hypothetical gymnastics to reach a 269 to 269 situation. Just a fairly conservative distribution of states to the candidate that is currently leading.
Soooooo, what happens. The simple answer (which you should have learned in elementary school civics) is that the House of Representatives would elect the President and the Senate would elect the Vice-President. On the House of Representative side, each state only gets one vote. So the delegations from each state would get together and a decide for whom they would cast their one vote. California would get one vote and Alaska would get one vote. The breakdown of congressional districts would make it appear that in the event of an electoral college tie, Obama would come out on top; but, I don’t think it would easy. For example, lets examine the situation of poor Nancy Boyda and Dennis Moore of Kansas. Kansas has four representatives, two Republicans and two Democrats. Can you imagine the situation Rep. Boyda and Rep. Moore would be in? Obviously being Democrats you would think they want to cast their vote for Obama; but, their state and most likely congressional districts would have just voted for McCain. In the end, while it will be tough, I think Obama would prevail.
On the Senate side it gets a little more complicated. Right now polls suggest that Democrats will control 55 seats come January. Also US Code Title 3 states that it will be the NEW congress inaugurated in January that would break ties. So no problem right? Biden would be elected as VP and we all open a bottle of beer in celebration. Not so fast. The electoral votes are delivered to Congress in December and Amendment 12 to the Constitution states that in the event of a tie in the electoral college Congress "shall choose immediately, by ballot”. The key word there is immediately. It doesn’t say January when the new Congress is in place; but immediately. Soooooo, the argument could be made (and would be) that US Title Code 3 is unconstitutional and that the existing Senate needs to elect the VP.
Currently the makeup of the Senate is 49 Republicans, 49 Democrats and 2 Independents. Both Independents tend to vote with the Democrats; BUT, one of them is Lieberman. That is right, the same Joe Lieberman that spoke at the Republican National Convention. If he cast his vote for Palin (which doesn’t seem far fetched) then we have a tie in the Senate. Guess who then casts the deciding vote.
Dick Cheney.
Made your blood run cold didn’t it?
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8 comments:
*shudder*
Oh yes, I too have been losing sleep. And poor Boyda and Moore may be stuck in the situation you describe.
But it comes down to this, if this country is stupid enough to "elect" a McCain/Palin ticket (which I realize is a very real possibility, I'm not being niave) then we're just moving to Canada. Or Denmark.
Ah, but that's just if we give them the states in which they hold the lead today.
Just wait until the debates - especially the one I've penciled in to be my favorite day of this election year: October 2nd, or as I call it, "Palin shows the world hockey moms can't dance."
*shiver* like someone walking over my country's grave
With a McCain/Palin ticket, we are moving to Iceland.
Or more realistically, we will just *shudder* and *shiver* with the masses.
Posted by : Pie Gallon Palin (thanks Anna for the fun site)
I wonder if ol' Dickie can put lipstick on a pig... or tell the difference between a hockey mom and a pitbull.
I hear Somalia is a wonderful place to live these days.
I believe the "simplest answer" is to put the two candidates in an arena and have them fight it out gladiator-style, a la Russel Crow and Joaquin Phoenix, victor takes all
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