Final Predictions for U.S. Elections

[KrazyHorse]

Also, note that selecting a VP requires an absolute majority of the whole body of the Senate, so a 50-50 tie is not required for deadlock; what is required is that 50 or less Senators vote for the more popular candidate.

Finally, it seems to me that since a quorum of 2/3 of the HoR is required to select a Prez, couldn't the minority party simply refuse to show up and vote, denying the majority party the requisite quorum?

[Ecthy]

Who is president of the incoming senate then? Do they pick one prior to picking the VP (in case od an EC tie)?

[Deity Dude]

Boris:

Here's what Constitutional Scholars have said on the subject. I agree that someone might challenge the Tie breaking vote of the VP but he would make that vote and the challenger would not have anywhere in the Constitution to specifically back point too that says he shouldn't.

Read last line if nothing else.

http://www.usconstitution.net/consttop_elec.html

From the US Constitution Online annotated topics.

The choice for Vice President moves along similarly, with the majority vote getter becoming VP. If there is no majority, the top two vote-getters are voted on by the Senate. In the case of the Senate, the Senators are not grouped by state, though there must still be a two-thirds quorum to take the vote. Also note that because only the top two vote-getters are placed in the mix, the choice for Vice President should be an easier one. Also note that in the case of a tie, the current Vice President, as President of the Senate, may cast a vote for himself (if the current Vice President is running for re-election).

Krazyhorse:

Note that it says current Vice President. This is true because he is the President of the Senate until a new one is chosen.

Krazyhorse:

It also says "the House of Representatives shall choose immediately, by ballot, the President" - 12th Amendment

The annotated version at USCONSTITUTION,com interprets the amendment to mean:

The choice must be made by January 20th (originally March 4th in the 12th Amendment, but altered by the 20th Amendment), or the Vice President becomes the Acting President, until such time as the House can finally agree.

In another words it is chosen before the new house is seated in January. If it can't be, the VP, who is chosen by the existing Senate with the existing VP acting as Tie-breaker is acting VP until the new House resolves the issue.

So like I said - the house would choose Obama. Assuming the Repubs wanted to be totally partisan and not give Obama the VP he wanted and if Lieberman voted with them they would have a tie. Cheney would cast the tie-breaker and Palin would be VP.

[Kuciwalker]

379. I think Obama picks up GA.

[Darius871]

Originally posted by KrazyHorse
Finally, it seems to me that since a quorum of 2/3 of the HoR is required to select a Prez, couldn't the minority party simply refuse to show up and vote, denying the majority party the requisite quorum?

Yes, in which case the VP chosen by the Senate (presumably Biden) would become Prez, or if no VP is chosen by inauguration day either, then Congress could declare a Prez without quorum, if I'm reading Section 3 of the 20th Amendment correctly.

[Boris Godunov]

DD: The new House is seated January 3rd, so no, the current House does not have to make the decision. If the Congressional Dems wanted to punt it to the next Congress, they could.

[Dinner]

Originally posted by KrazyHorse
In general agreement with your predictions, mod one important difference:

Obama loses MO, brings him down to 353 (given likely map configuration I'm assuming you're predicting MO for Obama, not IN)

MO is a complete toss up at this point but it is the only one.

http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/

[KrazyHorse]

Originally posted by Deity Dude

Krazyhorse:

"the House of Representatives shall choose immediately, by ballot, the President" - 12th Amendment

The annotated version at USCONSTITUTION,com interprets the amendment to mean:

The choice must be made by January 20th (originally March 4th in the 12th Amendment, but altered by the 20th Amendment), or the Vice President becomes the Acting President, until such time as the House can finally agree.

In another words it is chosen before the new house is seated in January.

No. The new congress is considered to be in session as of 1pm on Jan 6. While some people still insist on the outgoing interpretation, the majority opinion is that this is decisive.

[KrazyHorse]

nm

[Dinner]

BTW I predict MO will go to Obama by a slim margin. The reason is for the past two weeks Obama has been up +5 and dropping until election day when it turned dead even. That means Obama will have a slight edge in early voting and absentee ballots so if the polls are right and the state is dead even of election day then Obama will win due to early voting.

[Darius871]

Does it make any difference that the House Representatives would have to vote as state delegations rather than individually? Wouldn't that breakdown lean more R than the D-leaning overall tally?

More importantly, what the hell do you do when there's a tie within a state delegation? Consider for instance Kansas' four representatives - what if Boyda (D) and Moore (D) vote for Obama, but Moran (R) and Tiahrt (R) vote for McCain? How would you break ties like that to make a state-delegation tally? Or would that state just be ignored in the tally as part of the 1/3 outside quorum?

[KrazyHorse]

Originally posted by Darius871
Does it make any difference that the House Representatives would have to vote as state delegations rather than individually? Wouldn't that breakdown lean more R than the D-leaning overall tally?

IIRC it's like 27-21(?) right now for the Dems in outright control of state congressional reps.

I don't know what split delegations would do. Abstain?

[Darius871]

Abstaining would make the most sense I guess; so long as 2/3 do have a clear vote that makes quorum anyway.

[Boris Godunov]

Hmm, wonder where BK has gone. He better not be hiding because of our bet.

[Dr Strangelove]

Obama needs to start planning ahead. For instance, should the White House be armored in Titanium or Chobam?