A 269 Tie This Year
By gewcew23
@gewcew23 (8007)
United States
September 14, 2008 9:55am CST
I wonder if anyone else has thought of this but let us say that everything stays the same since the 2004 election, except Colorado's 9 electoral votes going to Obama and New Hampshire 3 electoral votes going to McCain, we get a 269 electoral tie. Another way which probably would not happen would be just simply West Virginia going to Obama. A know that will not happen, but if everything happen the same way as 2004 except West Virginia's 5 electoral votes, would create a 269 tie. Also if everything stayed the same as 2004 except Nevada and New Mexico flipped there that would create a 269 tie. Yikes imagine that, after the past two election imagine an election tie.
Try it out for your self
http://news.yahoo.com/election/2008/dashboard
1 response
@evanslf (484)
•
15 Sep 08
There are a number of permutations that could lead to a 269 tie - so though the possibility is still unlikely there is a small chance of it happening particularly if the polls remain as tight as they do now. (I understand the mathematicians have calculated that there is a 2% chance of such a tie, but don't ask me what algorithms they have used to calculate this).
As said previously, if it is a tie, then it goes to the House of Representatives. As the outcome here would then be decided on state delegations, this would likely put Obama over the top - I understand that even on the most conservative of predictions, the Dems will have a majority of 2 in the state delegations in the house of representatives, and their majority is likely to be 5 or so.
If however some dem delegations defect (because the dem representatives are in republican states and might feel under pressure to 'defect' to save their political skins), then it could possibly end up in a tie in terms of delegations in the house of representatives (pretty unlikely though).
It that happens, then I understand it goes to the senate who then choose the vice-president who then acts as president. As the Dems are likely to have a good majority in the Senate, then presumably that would be Biden.
