What Happens If Tie In Florida Vote Count?

[russjourn]

What happens to Florida’s 25 Electoral College votes if, at the end of the recounting in Florida, there is an exact tie in the number of votes for Bush and Gore? I know this is highly unlikely, but so has been this whole escapade.

Russell Shaw
Portland, Oregon

[woodstockbirdybird]

Then we say “screw it” and elect Nader.

[Northern_Piper]

There’ve been news reports that in some of the western states, in the event of a tie it’s decided by chance. The candidates get to choose what form of chance, but some state offices have been decided by a hand of stud poker (no drawing). The two states that were mentioned as using this approach were New Mexico and North Dakota.

[Ringo]

Here’s something from an article entitled Dead Presidents’ Society at The American Spectator Online:

Under the 12th Amendment, if the deadlock in Florida spreads to the College and then into the House, and no candidate wins a majority, come next spring Al Gore will be President, George W. Bush Vice President, none of the campaign’s $4 billion will be lost, and a bedrock of the republic – the right to the finest democracy that money can buy – will be preserved.

Grolier’s entry for the 12th Amendment sums it up thusly:

The 12th Amendment provides the following: (1) separate ballots are used for each office; (2) persons with the greatest number of votes for each office will be elected if that number constitutes a majority of the total electors; (3) if no such majority is met for either or both of the two highest offices, the House of Representatives will then vote for the president from among the three highest candidates and the Senate will vote for the vice-president from among the two highest candidates; (4) no person constitutionally ineligible to be president can be vice-president.

[MEBuckner]

That’s when the civil war starts…

OK, seriously,

a) Your friendly neighborhood moderator is going to come along and beat this thread to death with a stick any minute now–see this thread here and

b) The question has already had its very own thread.