(NewsNation) — Forecasting by NewsNation partners Decision Desk HQ and The Hill currently predicts a 0.5% chance Donald Trump and Kamala Harris tie in the Electoral College in this year’s presidential election.
In other words, a pretty unlikely outcome, but in the one in 200 chance the two candidates finish deadlocked, how would the presidency be decided?
The answer is a “contingent election.”
After the chaotic 1800 presidential election ended with Thomas Jefferson and Aaron Burr each at 73 electoral votes, the 12th Amendment was ratified to better govern the process of choosing a chief executive. It established rules about what to do in case of a tie or if no candidate received a majority of electoral votes, finding its solution in a contingent election that takes place Jan. 6 in the new Congress.
In this scenario, the House of Representatives decides who among the top three Electoral College finishers becomes president, and the Senate determines who becomes vice president among the top two finishers for that position.
Each state’s delegation in the House (i.e., all its allotted representatives) gets a single vote, and the next president becomes the candidate who receives a majority 26 of 50 state votes. In the Senate, each senator gets one vote to pick the vice president, with 51 votes needed to determine a winner.
The 12th Amendment doesn’t say how the House state delegations, made up of both Democrats and Republicans, decide which candidate to support, and they are not bound to choose the candidate who won their state in the general election.
Assuming the state delegations make their presidential picks based on a simple majority vote by each state’s representatives, Trump would likely become the chief executive, as Republicans hold a majority in 26 states compared to the Democrats’ 22 (with North Carolina and Minnesota evenly split).
Finally, in the event no candidate received a majority of state delegation votes by Jan. 20, Inauguration Day, the vice president chosen by the Senate would become acting president. If the Senate was also unable to come to a decision, then the next eligible member of the presidential succession would temporarily hold the office, likely the speaker of the House.
