The Republican representatives would of course vote for the Republican candidate. I wouldn’t like this situation at all, of course, as it would lead to Trump becoming President, but even I can’t say that it’d be any sort of foul play. The Constitution says what happens if no candidate gets a majority of the electoral votes, and what the Constitution says is that it then goes to the House. It doesn’t say that it goes to the winner of the popular vote, it doesn’t say that it goes to the candidate with the greater level of governmental experience, it doesn’t even say that the House should carefully consider such matters. It says it goes to the House, and the House delegations from the majority of states are of the party that supports Trump, so that’s what happens.
Help me understand something: I understand that in the past, John Edwards once got an electoral vote in 2004 by mistake (a Minnesota elector voted incorrectly.) Now, Edwards wasn’t eligible in the sense that he wasn’t a presidential candidate with electoral votes on Election Day (those technically all went to Bush or Kerry,) but the vote counted anyway, right?
So what prevents Republicans in the House from, legally speaking, voting for anyone they want? Or are they limited to Trump/Pence, but could vote in Pence instead of Trump?
Of course there isn’t. That is absolutely preposterous.
I will give you 100-to-1 odds against that happening conditional on McMullin winning Utah - that is to say, if he doesn’t win Utah there’s no bet at all, but if he does I offer you 100-to-1 odds he does not become President.
Yes.
The electors can vote for anyone they wish, assuming that person is Constitutionally eligible, and the votes all count.
There are no electoral votes “on Election Day.” You might be confusing this with the rule that if no candidate get a majority of electoral votes, the House votes, and when that happens THEY can only name someone who finished in the top three in electoral votes.
They could, yes. They won’t, though. These people are specifically chosen because they are the sort of people who do what they’re told. That’s why faithless electors are so rare.
I think you’re confusing restrictions on electors with restrictions on the House in the event of no majority in the Electoral College.
If there’s no majority in the Electoral College, the election goes to the House. The House must choose between the top three in the Electoral College.
The 538 electors themselves, however, have (theoretically) no restrictions. They could vote for Trump. They could vote for Clinton. They could vote for Cecil Adams. They could vote for themselves. They could even vote for someone constitutionally ineligible, like Obama. Except in the last case, their vote will count. Some states have laws that will try to punish any faithless electors, and some even try to void the votes of faithless electors. Such laws might be constitutional, and they might not (the Supreme Court would almost certainly have to decide, if push came to shove). Absent anything like that, a faithless elector’s vote counts just as much as a faithful elector’s vote. So, yes, John Edwards was in the top three Electoral College vote-getters in 2004, and if somehow this caused there to be no majority, the incoming House would have voted between Bush, Kerry, and Edwards. But the House could not vote for anyone else.
Ah you’re right. House rules vs EC rules.
The only republicans who have the balls to stand in the middle of the train tracks in front of the oncoming Trump train are senators contemplating retirement - like John McCain. A deadlock would go to the House, and nobody dares to take on Trump there. The fact that Kaine could be acting as President would just make them that much more desperate to resolve the matter. House Republicans will vote for Trump, or it will ignite a civil war.
This needs to be repeated, because I think there’s always confusion on this. It isn’t a vote of 435 individual congressmen, it’s a vote of 50 state delegations. Can anyone point out what delegations are going to be swayed en masse away from Trump that would ordinarily be voting republican?
They would vote in Trump for the simple reason that they will want control of the supreme court nominees.
All of them if McMullin is an option.
Why, if Trump beat McMullin in their states, would they vote for McMullin? That would be alienating their voters - the ones who voted for Trump and invoking a huge risk of being primaried out. Especially if all the other state delegations don’t follow along and that winds up with Clinton victory. But high risk, even with McMullin presidency. Which would generate a s-storm anyway, if someone with <3% ended up president.
But, as I said before, that would generate a tremendous amount of interest in National Popular vote group(s).
Well, it could be argued that those voters didn’t really have the chance, since McMullin is only on the ballot in 11 states. There’s 9 states he’s not even eligible as a write-in candidate.
But I agree, I have a hard time seeing the Republicans electing McMullin over Trump should that scenario occur (no one reaches 270, McMullin wins Utah). More likely they just hold their nose and fall into party line.
But I specifically said in the states Trump beat McMulllin in - meaning ones where he was on the ballot. They’d face greater wrath from the voters who picked Trump over him.
Nitpick, but it’s more than half of electoral votes (270) not states. The Presidency can be had just by winning 11 key states.
So it’s the Chicago mayor’s election, huh?
[QUOTE=Cecil Adams]
Article: Here
Turning to the political laboratory known as Chicago, we note that incumbent mayor Rahm Emanuel trounced challenger Chuy Garcia 56 to 44 percent last month by suggesting that were his relatively inexperienced opponent elected, Chicago would go the way of Detroit.
(Garcia’s given name, you may recall, is Jesus. No great talent as a cartoonist is required to cast Rahm as the Prince of Darkness. It tells you something about politics in America, or anyway in Chicago, that in a confrontation with the Devil, Jesus lost.)
[/QUOTE]
But in any realistic vote in which Clinton doesn’t get 270 Electoral votes, she loses many more than half the states.
No, the general election is by electoral votes. If it gets kicked to the House, it’s by state. The winner would need 26 state delegations to vote for them.
Was adaher talking about Congress or the general election?
The really interesting thing is that there’s a way for Republicans to engineer Paul Ryan into the White House:
http://blog.constitutioncenter.org/2012/11/an-electoral-college-tie-explained/
Larry Sabato points out that already, there are three states with even delegations, which means they probably cast a blank ballot:
http://www.centerforpolitics.org/crystalball/articles/for-republicans-a-2016-tie-is-a-win/
The new House will look different, but Democrats are expected to gain some seats, which means potentially locking up a couple of more states that would currently vote for Trump.
Republican state dominance is pretty incredible though. 33 state delegations to the Democrats’ 14.