And sends it to the house.......which will vote for trump
But all of tjis is moot. Trump will poll 305 tomorrow
The 270 figure has to do with the majority required, and the number of electors there are.
As the number of states increased, the populations fluctuated, the number of electors would change, and the number needed to win would also change.
State electors are population proportional.
I think it follows from this:
"the person having the greatest number of votes for President, shall be the President, if such number be a majority of the whole number of electors appointed;"
The 12 amendment says that the winner must have a majority of all votes in the electoral college, otherwise the top 3 candidates can be voted on in the House
The interesting thing about the 12th amendment is the history behind it. Originally, the Constitution was written with the thought that we’d have no parties like bad old England. So the electors were to vote for two men to become President. The one who got the most votes would be President and the one who came in 2nd would be Vice President.
But parties did arise. In the election of 1800 Thomas Jefferson and Aaron Burr running as Democratic Republicans won against the Federalists. Jefferson and Burr received the same number of Electoral votes. Seeing his chance, Burr tried to steal the election (sound familiar?) by trying to drum up votes in the House to be elected President. Hamilton led the forces who opposed Burr and later Burr would pay him back by killing him in a duel.
So now the electors vote separately for President and Vice President. Under the old system Hillary! would be Vice President-Elect and wouldn’t that make for an interesting four years.
You’re not very good at math, are you?
Currently there are 535 electors. 435 electors representing the total of congressional districts, and 100 electors representing the total number of US senators. 270 is the majority of electors.
Well, not to get all Clintonian on you, but it depends on the meaning of “appointed”.
If 538 electors are “appointed”, you need 270 to win. If only 300 electors are “appointed”, you only need 151. Both of those things are very clear from reading Amendment XII.
But what if there are contested slates when Congress enters special joint session to count the votes? For example, let’s say Florida had sent two slates of electors to President of the Senate Gore in 2001, one from the Legislature, one from the Secretary of State under orders from SCoFLA.
How many “appointed” electors would there have been? 513, 538, or 563?