in the house of representatives, it thrown to the house, there was a twist. and trump was fixated on this twist. it was the provision that could theoretically at least keep him in power. while the democrats held the current house majority, the 12th amendment of the constitution stated that the voting on a contested election would not be done by a simple majority vote in the, house instead the amendment says the election vote will be counted in blocks of state delegations, with one vote per state. republicans controlled more delegations, in the house of representatives. meaning, trump would likely win, if the house chamber ended up deciding the victor, based on the pre-scripts of that. former vice president dan quail thought trump s suggestion was preposterous and dangerous. his effort to control events was a dark rube goldberg-like fantasy. and can precipitate a constitutional crisis. mike, you have no flexibility on this.
neither of them is president in this circumstance. so how in this circumstance do we do side who wins the presidency? jonathan carl spun this out in print and we ve been look looking at it ever since. it is not an accident what would happen in the case of a 269 to 269 electoral college tie. this is not something we would have to make it up on the spot. the founders talked about what would be the right thing to do in a circumstances like this. and it turns out what they thought was a very strange thing. so according to the 12th amendment, it s the house of representatives who gets to choose who is the president. but, they do not vote on who s going to be president the way they normally vote on things in the house. in that circumstance, when they re making that specific decision, each state just gets one vote per state. so no matter how many members of congress there are from each state, no matter how big the
so close that a single red dot in maine could make a difference for mitt romney. maybe this election will be historically close, one electoral vote close, epically close. so close that we have to dive way down into the nebraska and maine congressional district maps. so close that we have to memorize the innards and the sub-innards of the 12th amendment of the constitution to figure out who wins. the polls are close enough that campaigning for individual electoral votes is now happening. and there s a lot of money behind it. and the surprising news of what happens if there is a tie is all of a sudden very relevant to those of us who are paying close attention to this election. the news about the potential tie is coming up.
but check this out. the other state besides nebraska that does not just award its electoral votes as a whole state, the other state that splits them up by district is the state of maine. and maine has gone all blue in the last five presidential elections. but this year, a pro-mitt romney super pac is buying a nice chunk of airtime in maine for pro-mitt romney ads, including, in the one congressional district in the state, where mitt romney might, maybe, conceivably have a chance. and yeah, maybe the romney super pac is really buying ads in maine so they ll get seen next door in swing state, new hampshire, but maybe the race is so close that a single red dot in maine could make a difference for mitt romney. maybe this election will be historically close, one electoral vote close, epically close. so close that we have to dive way down into the nebraska and maine congressional district maps. so close that we have to memorize the innards and the sub-innards of the 12th amendment of the con
thought was a very strange thing. so according to the 12th amendment, it s the house of representatives who gets to choose who is the president. but, they do not vote on who s going to be president the way they normally vote on things in the house. in that circumstance, when they re making that specific decision, each state just gets one vote per state. so no matter how many members of congress there are from each state, no matter how big the state s population, each state gets an equal vote. so in this scenario that get us to an electoral tie between mitt romney and president obama, mitt romney wins more states. he wins 29 states to obama s 21 states. which means that if the house of representatives voted, mitt romney would be elected by the house of representatives. nobody can instruct the state congressional delegations exactly how to cast their ballots, they get to decide on their own. you would think they would vote