There is a process to choose the next president in the case of a tie. ", What Happens If the Presidential Election Is a Tie, How the US Electoral College System Works. Note that the discussion on this page is mostly written around a 269-269 tie between two candidates. The framers of the Constitution had not anticipated such a tie nor had they considered the possibility of the election of a President or Vice President from opposing factions - which had been the case in the 1796 election. HISTORY reviews and updates its content regularly to ensure it is complete and accurate. Washington, D.C. is not a state, but has three electoral votes. Why don't the candidates get a proportion of the electoral vote? Why have elections when the state's winner will receive all the electoral votes? However, there hasn’t been a tie in the Electoral College since the … In the first four U.S. presidential elections, each Elector cast two ballots for president. The amendment states that if no candidate wins the majority of Electoral votes, the election is thrown to the House to serve as a tie-breaker, but only the top three Electoral vote-getters make the cut. However, the 12th amendment to the US Constitution addresses what happens if there is a tie in electoral votes. Each Senator would get one vote, and the winner would be the one who received 51 votes. Each political party nominates its own candidates for the position of presidential elector. Presidents Elected Without Winning the Popular Vote, Landslide Victory: Definition in Elections, Vice President of the United States: Duties and Details, Learn How Many Total Electoral Votes There Are, 12th Amendment: Fixing the Electoral College, Why Puerto Rico Matters in the US Presidential Election. Twice a week we compile our most fascinating features and deliver them straight to you. READ MORE: These US Elections Saw the Highest Voter Turnout Rates. A 269-269 tie could legitimately happen if Trump and Biden split Wisconsin and Minnesota. Since there are 538 electoral votes, it is feasibly possible for the presidential electoral vote to end in a 269-269 tie. When Jackson, who had also won the popular vote, learned that Adams named Clay as his Secretary of State, he fumed at what he saw as a brazenly “corrupt bargain” to steal the White House. “Even though the Electoral College has been one of the most controversial institutions created by the framers—there have been over 700 attempts to amend or abolish it—only a few of those attempts have borne fruit, the 12th Amendment being the first of those,” says Alexander. Because only the top three vote-getters moved on to the contingency election in the House, the fourth-place finisher, Henry Clay, was out of the running. The result was a 73-73 tie between Thomas Jefferson and his running mate, Aaron Burr, both Democratic-Republicans.”. READ MORE: Why Andrew Jackson Legacy Is Controversial. What about Washington, D.C. and the electoral vote? Each State was allocated a number of Electors equal to the number of its U.S. WATCH: America 101: Why Do We Have a Two-Party System? The 1800 election ended in an Electoral College tie, ... allowing John Quincy Adams to become president even though he won neither the popular vote nor the electoral vote. Maine and Nebras… Or it’s also possible that a third party candidate could win enough electoral votes to prevent any candidate from winning a majority. According to the Constitution, an electoral tie goes to the House of Representatives, where each state casts one ballot to pick a winner from among the two tied candidates. In order to win the presidency, one must receive a … What procedure is followed for the electors to vote? “That created problems when Electors pledged to the Democratic-Republicans cast one vote for each of the two people on the ticket. But when it does, the 12th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution serves as an election tie-breaking provision. “That was one of the first clues that the Electoral College created by the founders wasn’t working as intended,” says Robert Alexander, a professor of political science at Ohio Northern University and author of Representation and the Electoral College. When do we finally have an official winner? “That actually changed the practice of the Electoral College considerably.”. In the first design of the Electoral College (described in Article II, Section 1 of the Constitution): 1. What Is the Electoral College and Why Was It Created? Most states require that all electoral votes go to the candidate who receives the plurality in that state. Has a tie ever occurred in the electoral college? A tie is rare, but theoretically not impossible. © 2020 A&E Television Networks, LLC. The tie vote between Jefferson and Burr in the 1801 Electoral College pointed out problems with the electoral system. Jefferson, the Republican’s first choice, and Burr, the party’s second choice, both garnered 73 electoral votes (it should be noted that Jeffersonian … Two candidates received exactly 73 electoral votes, producing the first and (so far) only Electoral College tie in American history. Participating states will award all their electoral votes as a block to the winner of the national popular vote once the law is passed in states holding a majority of the nation's electoral votes. The candidate who won the majority of Electoral College votes was the president and the second-place finisher was the vice president. In this plan, Congress plays a formal role in the election of the President and Vice President. Democratic-Republicans failed to execute the plan, however, resulting in a tie between Jefferson and Burr with 73 electoral votes each, and a third place finish for Adams with 65 votes. Electoral College Ties. In the controversial 1800 presidential election, an Electoral College tie vote occurred between Thomas Jefferson and his running mate, Aaron Burr. It's rare. Suggestions have included an amendment with three provisions: requiring every state to award electoral votes based on a popular vote in that state or the nation as a whole; replacing human electors with votes to be cast automatically according to the state's rules; and awarding the presidency to the national popular vote winner if no candidate wins an Electoral College majority.According to the ROPER POLL website. The candidate who gets 51 votes (majority) will be the Vice-President on January 20th. And it was the second time since 2000 – when Al Gore won the popular vote but George W. Bush won the Electoral College – that a candidate lost the popular vote but won the Electoral College. Melissa Kelly, M.Ed., is a secondary school teacher, instructional designer, and the author of "The Everything New Teacher Book: A Survival Guide for the First Year and Beyond. A faithless elector or a third-party candidate can alter the math, in theory, to send an election to Congress. While Members of Congress are expressly forbidden from being electors, the Constitution requires the House and Senate to count the Electoral College’s ballots, and in the event of a tie, to select the President and Vice President, respectively. Since 1967, majorities in Gallup polls have supported an amendment abolishing the electoral college, with peak support at 80% in 1968. In addition to creating separate ballots for president and vice president, the 12th Amendment also limited the field of presidential candidates that could be voted on in a contingent election in the House of Representatives. If neither presidential candidate gets 270 Electoral College votes, the Constitution requires the House of Representatives to pick the President. The 538 members of the Electoral College cast their votes for President and Vice President in meetings held in the 50 state capitals and the District of Columbia in mid-December of presidential election years. The 1800 tie election made an even stronger case that the Electoral College needed to be fixed. However, much of the same would come into play if a third party or independent candidate wins enough electoral votes to prevent any candidate in the race from reaching 270. All Rights Reserved. That also comes to 269 electoral votes - and a tied election. The Twelfth Amendment (Amendment XII) to the United States Constitution provides the procedure for electing the president and vice president.It replaced the procedure provided in Article II, Section 1, Clause 3, by which the Electoral College originally functioned. To win the presidency, a candidate must win 270 electoral votes, or a majority of the 538 electors at stake in the election. FACT CHECK: We strive for accuracy and fairness. If the election remains tied after expected legal challenges and the submission of certified results from the states to Congress, the newly elected House would decide the presidential winner in January 2021 based on a vote of state delegations and not individual representatives. Adoption of the National Popular Vote plan: Advocates of a national popular vote for president are focusing their reform efforts on a  proposal that has been steadily advancing in state legislatures: the National Popular Vote plan for president.The National Popular Vote plan is an interstate agreement that relies on states' constitutional powers to allocate electoral votes and to enter into binding interstate compacts. Meanwhile, the Federalist candidate, incumbent John Adams, only received 65 votes. So Adams was out of the running and Burr, Jefferson’s running mate, could have stepped aside, but didn’t. The manner of choos… (Probably Pence if Republicans control Senate.) Almost immediately, the existence of warring political parties created headaches for the Electoral College system. Under the 12th Amendment to the Constitution, in the case of an Electoral College tie for the vice-presidency, the Senate chooses the vice president. The Members of the Electoral College are chosen by each state and the District of Columbia on the Tuesday after the first Monday in November in presidential election years. It takes 270 votes to win the Electoral College. The tie-breaking vote made Jefferson president, with Burr declared vice president, as the Constitution required at the time. 2. The total number of electoral college votes is 538, which means each candidate could hypothetically receive 269 votes. The 1800 election fiasco demonstrated how the existing Electoral College system wasn’t equipped for party-line voting. By 1800, two political parties, the Federalists and the Democratic-Republicans, held full sway over Electors, who pledged to cast their ballots for the parties’ handpicked slate of candidates. WATCH: America 101: What is the Electoral College? Senators (always 2) plus the number of its U.S. Representative (which may change each decade according to the size of each State's population as determined in the decennial census). In 1800, Thomas Jefferson and Aaron Burr received the same number of electoral votes. Map illustrates votes by state, in the U.S. presidential election of 1800, broken down as votes for Aaron Burr, Thomas Jefferson, or 'Blank Ballot. Pennsylvania and Virginia began to mobilize their militias, wondering if the stalemate would spark a civil war. This has happened twice in our history. The Electoral College meets on Dec. 14 to officially submit votes, but if there's a confirmed tie, the votes will go to the House immediately, per the 12th Amendment, which will vote … How Many Electoral Votes Does a Candidate Need to Win? In the end, there are 538 electoral votes spread across the country. What Was Alexander Hamilton's Role in Aaron Burr's Contentious Presidential Defeat? In any case, that person who had the second highest number of Electoral votes was Vice-President (if there was a tie, the winner of the House vote was President; the loser was Vice-President). Since there are 538 electoral votes, it is feasibly possible for the presidential electoral vote to end in a 269-269 tie. When the Electoral votes were tallied in the 1800 U.S. presidential election—only the fourth election in the young nation’s history—there was a problem. If the state's winner chooses electors, won't the person with the most votes win? Check out the map below created on RealClearPolitics.com , a great website for tracking Presidential and Congressional elections: But Clay, who was Speaker of the House at the time, allegedly used his influence to get John Quincy Adams elected instead of Jackson. One unlikely scenario does, however, have an answer: An electoral college tie must be broken by Congress. After state election officials certify the popular vote of each state, the winning slate of electors meet in the state capital and cast two ballots—one for Vice President and one for President. The first one happened in 1800 when Thomas Jefferson and Aaron Burr were tied with 73 electoral votes from the 16 states. However, Joe Biden and Donald Trump continue to run neck-in-neck for majority of votes in several states, prompting many to question the likelihood of an election tie. It has also happened before. It's only happened three times in the nation's history. The Vice-President was a bit easier. M.Ed., Curriculum and Instruction, University of Florida. The total number of Electoral College votes is 538, so a 269 tie is a possible scenario. Constitutional Status of Electors Dealing with the question of the constitutional status of the electors, the Court said in 1890: “The sole function of the presidential electors is to cast, certify and transmit the vote of the State for President and Vice President of the nation. 1. These US Elections Saw the Highest Voter Turnout Rates, Why Andrew Jackson Legacy Is Controversial. If only it were that easy. How many electoral votes does a candidate need to win? However a 269-269 tie is unlikely.. Thankfully, the Constitution has a contingency plan for tie elections laid out in Article II, Section 1: “[I]f there be more than one who have such Majority, and have an equal Number of Votes, then the House of Representatives shall immediately chuse by Ballot one of them for President.”. But a presidential election could end up in an Electoral College tie, 269 to 269. An electoral tie has not happened since the adoption of the US Constitution in 1789. An electoral tie has not happened since the adoption of the US Constitution in 1789. So … Just in time for the 1804 presidential election, Congress passed and the states ratified the 12th Amendment, which now instructed Electors to cast one ballot for president and a second for vice president. It took the House seven days … If the second-highest vote count was shared by two or more people, the Senate chose between those people. As of today, it has been enacted in states representing nearly half of the 270 electoral votes necessary to trigger the agreement in 2016. Sometimes the Electoral College fails to give a presidential or vice-presidential candidate a majority of the vote. This plan guarantees election of the presidential candidate who wins the most popular votes in all 50 states and the District of Columbia. The framers of the Constitution hoped that political parties wouldn’t be necessary given the limited powers of the federal government, but presidential candidates started coalescing into political factions as early as the 1796 election, the first after George Washington. The compact would become effective once states comprising an Electoral College majority—that is, 270 or more Electoral College votes—sign … READ MORE: What Was Alexander Hamilton's Role in Aaron Burr's Contentious Presidential Defeat? Electors cannot vote for a Presidential and Vice Presidential candidate who both hail from an elector’s home state. But in 2020, a 269–269 tie in the Electoral College is not out of the question (if you’re skeptical, here are several terrifyingly plausible electoral maps that could result in this outcome). Has someone received a plurality of the vote yet lost in the electoral college. READ MORE: What Is the Electoral College and Why Was It Created? The total number of electoral college votes is 538, which means each candidate could hypothetically receive 269 votes. On the other hand, the Senate would decide on the new Vice President. A tie is rare, but theoretically not impossible. A bitterly divided House of Representatives deadlocked 36 times before it finally picked Thomas Jefferson as the winner of the 1800 election, and in the process laid bare a host of problems with the Electoral College that could only be fixed with a constitutional amendment. “Jackson has the distinction of being the only presidential candidate to receive a plurality of Electoral College vote and a plurality of the popular vote and still not come away with the presidency,” says Alexander. Federalist leaders like Alexander Hamilton hated Jefferson’s politics, but they distrusted the opportunistic Burr even more. The constitution provides that each state gets a number of members in the electoral college equal to the number of its representatives plus the number of … That seemingly harmless provision of the 12th Amendment had serious ramifications in the 1824 presidential election, in which four candidates received substantial Electoral votes, denying the front-runner Andrew Jackson the majority required to claim the presidency. This arrangement built upon an earlier compromise in the design of the Congress itself and thus satisfied both large and small States. An Electoral College tie is possible in the presidential election and it has happened before. The Federalists, who still held a majority in the lame duck Congress, were now in the awkward position of picking a president from two enemy candidates. if the House rejects some electoral votes, resulting in neither candidate receiving a majority. A bitterly divided House of Representatives finally chose the winner. This is how it works. Each Senator gets one vote, and can choose from the top 2 candidates who receive votes from the Electoral College. According to the Constitution, an electoral tie goes to the House of Representatives, where each state casts one ballot to pick a winner from among the two tied candidates. If there is a tie in the Electoral College, the Senate will select the Vice-President. If all 538 electors are appointed, 270 electoral votes (i.e., a majority of 538 members of the Electoral College) are required to elect the President and the Vice President. In the 1796 election, John Adams won the presidency, but the second-place finisher was Thomas Jefferson, Adams’ arch political rival and now his vice president. However, the 12th amendment to the US Constitution addresses what happens if … When? But if you see something that doesn't look right, click here to contact us! ', “[Candidates for president] ran as a ticket,” says Alexander. Why did the Founding Fathers create electors? It took 36 consecutive tie votes in the House before Jefferson was picked as the president and catastrophe was narrowly averted. If the Electoral College did end up tied, the Constitution dictates that it's the incoming Congress who breaks the stalemate, with the House of Representatives determining the … And under the 12 th Amendment, a tie election (or one without a candidate with a majority of Electoral votes) sends the presidential election to Congress to decide in a contingent election. Which states have the most electoral votes? There have been suggested amendments to fix the Electoral College: The American public overwhelmingly favors direct election of the president. Gallup surveys from the 1940s found over half of those who knew what the electoral college was thought it should not be continued. Here’s what would happen. How many total electoral votes are there? 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