In a tie, Edwards could be named Bush's VP

Seattle Post-Intelligencer ^ | October 11, 2004 | MATTHEW EISLEY

[NewMediaFan]

And you thought the 2000 presidential election was wild.

How about this for 2004: George Bush is re-elected president, and your new vice president is ... John Edwards.

Yes, it could happen.

If the right states favor Republican incumbents Bush and Dick Cheney on Election Day and the rest go for Democrats John Kerry and Edwards, the result could be a 269-269 tie in the Electoral College, which chooses the president and vice president.

Under the Constitution, the new House of Representatives would then elect the president by majority vote, with each state's House delegation getting one vote.

The winner almost surely would be Bush, since the Republican Party is expected to control most delegations in the House, where it now has a 30-20 edge.

The Senate would elect the vice president by majority vote, choosing Cheney or Edwards, with each senator getting one vote.

And if Democrats gain two Senate seats Nov. 2, the body could pick Edwards, the senator and trial lawyer from Raleigh, N.C.

A dozen or more scenarios could produce a draw in the Electoral College, said Larry Sabato, a political scientist at the University of Virginia.

[chimera]

But Democrats won't gain control of the Senate. Democrats are going to lose to Republicans in Georgia and South Carolina for sure (+2 R) and possibly North Carolina and South Dakota, too.

But we're losing the IL seat for sure, and I've seen polls and postings that appear to indicate that we're in trouble in CO and AK. Losing the NC race would be a heartbreaker. That seat was ripe for picking up. When the dust and dead Indians settle, it's hard to imagine getting Dasshole out of there, although that is a pleasant thought. It's looking more and more like another 50-50 deal. Bummer.

So if the new Senate is deadlocked at 50-50 and the EC deadlocked at 269-269, would Cheney be allowed to vote for himself? I'd guess the newly constituted Senate would have to schedule a vote prior to the expiration of Cheny's term on Jan. 20th for that to happen, and the 'Rats would probably run out the clock. So the House would settle the Presidential race but the VP slot would be vacant. So Bush gets to nominate a VP for approval by the whole Congress? Probably then it would be Cheney, after having left office and then reinstated.

[Bad Sheep]

They'll die in NE too...but that doesn't really mean much....we've only got five votes. But we do hate Democrats, hence we are cool.

[Sacajaweau]

First of all, I don't believe it. But if the hypothesis is Edwards could be VP, then let's figure out: How does one replace a VP?

[Alberta's Child]

It would be really cool if Bush named Cheney his "security adviser" or something like that, and had him continue to function the same way he has been for the last few years. And then invited him to the State of the Union address, while sending Edwards to an "undisclosed location" that night.

[dangus]

I'm a little concerned about Alaska right now, where Baby Girl Murkowski is fighting Tony Knowles-nothing.

[newgeezer]

Oh, that thing, of course.

[Finalapproach29er]

MT. R has been rumbling, you know. :)

[zeebee]

But the vote would be taken in the current Senate. The new senate, however it turns out won't be in session till 1/20/05.

True??

[Sacajaweau]

Ah....Send him to France. I think Chirac would like him. :-)

[EQAndyBuzz]

Well we could have Bush/Cheny and then after all is said and done, Bush decides that taking away the press credentials of the MSM would be the most prudent thing to do.

They wind up in a Supreme Court fight and the government wins. The MSM is left with 5 bloggers and the DU for their news sources.

[COBOL2Java]

Exactly. A Vice President Edwards in a Bush administration would have the opportunity to experience firsthand Vice President John Nance's observation that "The Vice Presidency isn't worth a bucket of warm pi$$!" [note to historians: some think he said "warm spit" but that was a change from his actual quote, to make it less controversial]

[Wardawg]

So this gives the Hildebeast a reason to make Kerry lose by a lot.

[Salvation]

No way!

[rudypoot]

Edwards would do even less as VP than Gore... if that is even possible.

[Howlin]

We lose a seat in Illinois though.

[Howlin]

Edwards as Bush's VP would only be comic relief for Bush and cabinet. First place Bush could send him is Greenland for improving diplomatic relations, then to Swaziland for more of the same.....

Exactly. And Edwards wouldn't be needing that ceremonial VP office in the West Wing; he'd be all alone over in the OEOB, with a staff provided by George W. Bush!

[Howlin]

Yes. It would all happen in December.

[Howlin]

Well, I was wrong!

Electoral College

II.

How the Electoral College Works

A.

Methods of Selection

The U.S. Constitution sets forth only one requirement for serving as an elector. In Article II, Section 1, it provides that “no Senator or Representative, or Person holding an Office of Trust or Profit under the United States, shall be appointed an Elector.” No clear definition exists for the meaning of “office of trust or profit,” but it is generally taken to mean that members of the Cabinet or other high-ranking executive branch members cannot serve as electors. (However, in the election of 1876, an elector from Oregon was challenged on the grounds that he was a postmaster.) States have developed several different procedures for selecting electors. The most prominent method is the state party convention. Currently, 37 states nominate electors at their state party conventions. In 11 states and the District of Columbia, the state party’s central committee makes the selection. Two other states leave the decision to the state parties to choose a method of selection.

The persons chosen at this stage are not yet actual electors. They must be formally appointed. All state legislatures have by law conferred upon the citizens of the state the right to choose electors in the November election. As of 2000, the District of Columbia and all states except Maine and Nebraska had adopted the winner-take-all system. Under the winner-take-all system, the electors assigned to the candidate who won most of the vote in their state are all represented in the electoral college. Maine and Nebraska, however, employ the district system. Under this system, two electors are awarded to the winner of the statewide popular vote, and the remaining electors are awarded to the popular vote winner in each of the state’s congressional districts.

Only a handful of states print the names of candidates for elector on the ballot. In the vast majority of states, when the voter votes for a party’s candidates for president and vice president, the voter is simply assumed to have voted for the party’s candidates for elector.

B.

Counting the Votes

The electors meet, according to federal law, on the first Monday after the second Wednesday in December in a presidential election year. The Constitution requires that they meet “in their respective states” all across the country. Strictly speaking, therefore, there is no “college” of electors because they never convene jointly in a single national assembly. Most states provide by law that their electors meet in the state capital. Typically, these meetings are ceremonial; no debates occur, for there is nothing to debate.

In about half the states, electors are formally “pledged”—that is, they are legally committed to vote for the candidate of the party with which they are affiliated. In the remaining states, electors are “unpledged,” meaning that no explicit legal requirement exists to vote for the affiliated candidate. Still, even unpledged electors could face legal difficulties if they “faithlessly” voted for a candidate other than the one associated with their slate of electors. This is because the people of the state voted for that slate of electors with the reasonable expectation that those electors would loyally reflect the peoples’ choice. In fact, the problem of “faithless electors” has been more theoretical than real. About 20,000 electors voted in all presidential elections from 1789 to 2000, and fewer than a dozen voted faithlessly. The outcome of an election has never been changed by faithless electors—nevertheless, it could happen.

Each elector is required by federal law to sign and seal six copies of a certificate listing the elector’s choice for president and vice president. One copy is sent to the president of the United States Senate—that is, the incumbent vice president of the United States—who announces the results when the electoral votes are counted in Washington, D.C., on January 6 (or January 7 if the 6th falls on a Sunday). The vote count is done in a joint session of Congress that meets in the chamber of the House of Representatives. The incumbent vice president presides. The actual counting is done by members of Congress appointed to do the vote count. For this occasion they are called tellers. After the results are announced, any member may object to the counting of any electoral vote from any state (on the ground that it was not “regularly given”—a term federal law does not define). To sustain the objection, both houses of Congress must agree, each by a majority vote, that the vote should not be counted. This has happened several times. After the elections of 1820 and 1832 Congress rejected votes on technical grounds. Some votes cast in 1872 were rejected because they had been cast for a deceased candidate (Horace Greeley). A vote in the election of 1880 was rejected because it had been made on the wrong day.

If no candidate receives a majority of the electoral votes, the Constitution requires that the U.S. president be chosen by the House of Representatives. The 12th Amendment to the Constitution requires that the House “immediately” choose the president “by ballot” from among the presidential candidates receiving the highest number of votes in the electoral college. If there are more than two candidates receiving electoral college votes, then the House chooses from the three candidates who received the most votes. In the House election each state has one vote. Representatives from each state vote to decide which candidate will carry the state. The votes are taken state-by-state in alphabetical order. A majority of all the states, or 26 votes, is necessary to win.