In the 1960 election.
303 (Kennedy) + 219 (Nixon) +15 (Byrd) = 537.
My public school ejukashun tells me that that is approximately 1 less than 538, the total expected number.
Where did it go???
Actually, the question is where did the two extra come from? DC couldn’t vote in 1960, so you should only have 535.
My guess is that extra seats were added in Congress for Alaska and Hawaii (which both joined in 1959). Since there were extra members of the house, there were extra EV.
Zev Steinhardt
Confirmed. Alaska and Hawaii were given one rep each when they joined the Union, bringing the total number of reps to 437. With the 100 senators, that made the total number of EC votes avaialble 537. Had DC had the vote in 1960, there would have been 540.
Zev Steinhardt
Actually, the three votes that the bellman was taking to the electoral college (i.e. the ‘change’) are really part of…
Unfortunately now, we have an even number of electoral votes and there isn’t any way of changing that unless we: 1) scrap the system or 2) give DC an extra vote.
Since both of these require amending the Constitution, it seems likely that there might be a tie sometime.
However, I doubt that many of us on this board will ever see a closer presidential election.