# what if they gave an election, and nobody voted?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-they-gave-an-election-and-nobody-voted/35477>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [October 3, 2000, 1:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-they-gave-an-election-and-nobody-voted/35477 "2000-10-03T13:53:04Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![vanilla](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/f19dbf/32.png) [@vanilla](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/vanilla)\
**Post date:** [October 3, 2000, 1:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-they-gave-an-election-and-nobody-voted/35477/1 "2000-10-03T13:53:04Z")

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My question is: What if Gore or Bush didn’t get enough of the required electoral votes?

besides the fact that then we’d know the public had started getting smarter

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**Author:** ![John\_Corrado](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/a88e4f/32.png) [@John\_Corrado](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Corrado)\
**Post date:** [October 3, 2000, 2:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-they-gave-an-election-and-nobody-voted/35477/2 "2000-10-03T14:04:33Z")

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As per the Constitution, the House would decide who was elected. The voting in this is a little weird; you tally the votes from each rep for a single state, and whomever has the most votes wins that state. The winner of the election is the first person to get a majority of states to vote for them.

Assuming a straight party-line vote, I think that means that George W. would win (the Congress doing the voting is the _current_ session, not the one that will be sworn in based upon the 2000 elections, so it doesn’t matter who wins Congress in November).

Even without Nader or Buchanan taking a single electoral vote, it’s theoretically possible for there to be a 269-269 tie, which would result in Congress having to decide the winner.

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**Author:** ![Gunslinger](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/4491bb/32.png) [@Gunslinger](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gunslinger)\
**Post date:** [October 3, 2000, 8:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-they-gave-an-election-and-nobody-voted/35477/3 "2000-10-03T20:49:07Z")

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Interesting anecdote:  
In a school board election (somewhere in Kansas, IIRC) nobody voted…not even the candidate, who was running unopposed. The board appointed somebody else.