Holy crap… The last president to win without Ohio was, I think, Lincoln.
On the way home, my friend Rae and I chatted about the election (we’re both pro-Obama) and she mentioned the shenanigans that would occur if the race was a tie. Mathematically, with the Electoral College, it is possible (though unlikely) to tie. So what if the 538 Electors sit down after the election and vote to a 269 to 269 tie?
Well the House picks a new President. The catch here is each state gets one (one!) vote, and it’s a race to 26. Each state’s reps have to decide how to vote, which involves arm wrestling, I’m sure. They get until March to decide, which brought up the next question of what happens after January?
See the President is sworn into office in January. If we get there and the House hasn’t picked a president, we have to have a president, right? It’s not like the old one gets to keep his job. No, while the House is fighting out for President, the Senate picks a VP. They just need a simple majority, so 51 will do (there are two Senators per state).
The last time there was a tie, by the way, was 208 years ago. Vice President Thomas Jefferson defeated President John Adams, sort of. The whole election can be classified as “Shenanigans!” since it brought to light a flaw in the Constitution, that ended up causing that famous milk commercial. The original idea of the Electoral College was that they could only vote for the President but they got two votes. The person with the second highest number of votes was the VP. This was one of the more interesting ideas from the Constitution, the concept that the ‘looser’ would put the good of the nation above the ‘neener’ feelings. Suffice to say it didn’t work.
In 1800, Jefferson and Burr (yes, Aaron Burr) tied in Electoral votes. The vote was put to the House of Representatives, who were at the time controlled by the Federalists. Burr was a Federalist, and Jefferson was a Democratic-Republican (yes, Democratic-Republican was a party). As expected, the Federalists voted down the party line, except for some guy named Alexander Hamilton, who didn’t like anyone and voted for Jefferson. Burr didn’t take too well to that, and they had their duel in 1804 in part because of that vote.
Oh and yes, you’re reading this right if you figured out that Burr was Jefferson’s VP.