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Politics : Piffer Thread on Political Rantings and Ravings -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: mph who wrote (45)	11/13/2000 10:29:37 PM
From: Poet	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 14610

MPH: Follow the bouncing ball: siliconinvestor.com

To: mph who wrote (45)	11/13/2000 10:34:47 PM
From: jbIII	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 14610

Hi MPH, check out this TLC thread Subject 37373 Meet the next President...

To: mph who wrote (45)	11/13/2000 10:47:20 PM
From: Original Mad Dog	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 14610

I believe if the Electoral College does not yield a winner for whatever reason, the House of Representatives votes by state delegation (i.e., one state, one vote). Ironically, the Republicans had 25 or fewer state delegation majorities before the election but now will have 28. So in that scenario presumably Bush wins. (This is from memory because I am too lazy to look it up. So don't shoot me if it's wrong.)

To: mph who wrote (45)	11/14/2000 12:07:53 AM
From: Original Mad Dog	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 14610

Here's the answer to your earlier question: November 13, 2000 What Happens if Florida Can't Declare A Winner? Experts Debate Constitution By PHIL KUNTZ Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL WASHINGTON -- A debate is brewing over what happens in the unlikely event that Florida can't figure out who won and therefore has no one to represent it in the Electoral College. Some experts say the House of Representatives would have to pick a president because neither candidate would have a majority of 270 electoral votes; the House probably would back Texas Gov. George W. Bush, because each state gets one vote and Republicans control a comfortable majority of delegations. Others insist the remaining electors could decide; as things stand now, Vice President Al Gore is leading the Electoral College race by 255-246, with two other states and a total of 37 votes still up in the air. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Constitutional Conundrum What happens if one state can't decide who won? The answer, now in dispute, rides on these two excerpts, with the key phrases underline From Article II of the Constitution Each State shall appoint, in such Manner as the Legislature thereof may direct, a Number of Electors, equal to the whole Number of Senators and Representatives to which the State may be entitled in the Congress . . . From the 12th amendment The Electors shall meet in their respective states, and vote by ballot . . . 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; and if no person have such majority, then from the persons having the highest numbers not exceeding three on the list of those voted for as President, the House of Representatives shall choose immediately, by ballot, the President. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The Constitution says the winner of the Electoral College vote is the candidate who gets "a majority of the whole number of Electors appointed." The meaning of "appointed" is what the debate turns on. Every state has a slate of electors for each party's presidential ticket, and "appointed" could refer only to the electors representing the winning candidate in states where the election result isn't disputed. By that logic, if Florida hasn't declared a winner by Dec. 12 -- the deadline in federal law for settling such disputes -- it can't say which candidate's 25 electors were "appointed." So some scholars argue that whoever got the majority of the remaining 513 officially "appointed" electors' votes would win. "I think that's pretty clear," says Thomas Mann, an election expert at the Brookings Institution, a Washington think tank. Others disagree, arguing that "appointed" refers to all 538 electors the states are constitutionally required to choose. "A majority of 270 electoral votes is required to elect the President," says the Electoral College's official site on the Internet. "If no presidential candidate wins a majority [the election is] decided by the House of Representatives." The top lawyer for the National Archives' Office of the Federal Register, which oversees the quadrennial electoral process, says he is pretty sure that Mr. Mann and like-minded scholars are wrong. "I see what they're getting at, but I don't think that's correct. I believe the 'whole number of Electors' refers to 538," says Michael White, the Federal Register's legal affairs director. His theory is that the Constitution requires states to appoint electors -- "Each State shall appoint" them, it says -- so the framers didn't consider the possibility that one state might not. On reflection, however, Mr. White allows that he isn't positive: "I would say it's not clear." So who decides? That isn't clear, either. Republicans in Congress might be able to force the vote into the House, because a federal law says that if majorities in both chambers agree, Congress can reject some or all electoral votes in some circumstances, thereby denying both candidates a majority of "appointed" electors by any definition. (Then again, the Senate might end up tied 50-50, so a majority there might not be possible.) Or somebody could sue in federal court to get the Supreme Court, ultimately, to decide whether 270 votes are required. In that case, the nine justices would either make the call themselves or, as it sometimes does with sticky issues, declare the question too political for the courts and kick the question right back to the politicians in Congress.