The 2016 Democratic Iowa Caucus saw the closest result in Iowa history.
Less than three-tenths of a percent separated Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton.
Additionally, Clinton won in six tied precincts by way of a coin toss.
Such a close start to the race made us want to know what would happen if this trend made
it all the way to election day.
What would happen if two presidential candidates tied?
Well, while this may seem unlikely, it is actually easier than many people think.
The reason is that the US population does not actually elect their president, but rather,
state representatives do via the electoral college.
Basically, each state has a given number of “electors”, which vary based on the population
of that state.
In total there are 538 electors.
Some very populated states like California wield 55 electoral votes, while sparser states
like Alaska only have 3.
Moreover, if a candidate gets even slightly more votes in a state, they get ALL of that
state’s electoral votes.
This basic process is written into Article Two of the US Constitution.
So, has this ever led to a tie?
Yup, in 1800.
At the time there were fewer states, fewer people, and an odd rule where the winner of
the election became president, and the second runner up became vice president.
That’d be a little awkward today.
When the results came out, both Thomas Jefferson and Aaron Burr had received 73 electoral votes
each.
To break the tie, the House of Representatives voted amongst themselves, and eventually crowned
Jefferson the third President.
This unprecedented situation led to the twelfth amendment, which changed both the way presidents
and vice presidents are picked, as well as the procedure in case of a tie.
The biggest difference the 12th amendment brought was that when the House would vote
on a tie for President, instead of states having a proportional number of votes, each
state would only get one vote.
So now, California’s nearly 39-million-person population equaled Wyoming’s 580,000 in
representation.
But even if there isn’t a tie, a close race can still be difficult.
In the 2000 election between George W. Bush and Al Gore, both candidates were short just
a few electoral votes necessary to win.
The final state which would decide the race was Florida, with 25 electoral votes.
Florida’s tally showed a difference of less than 1000 individual votes, pushing Gore to
demand a recount of several important counties.
However, the Supreme Court overruled the recount as unconstitutional, and reverted the election
to Bush.
It also brought about one of the strongest arguments against the electoral college.
Despite winning the largest number of electoral votes by a margin of just 537 individual votes
in Florida, Bush actually got half a million fewer votes in the overall election than Gore.
To this day this election is one of the most contentious in US history.
In the end, an actual tie, or even getting close to a tie, would lead to some fairly
non-democratic solutions.
Although, perhaps that’s not entirely surprising.
The United States is, by definition, not a true democracy, but in fact, a constitutional
republic.
Wait, what?
America isn’t a democracy?
What does that mean?
What exactly is a constitutional republic?
Well, you can find out by watching this video all about American Democracy.
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