thanks for confirming that. Does anyone know what happens if a delegation is evenly split between candidates? That would actually happen in several cases right now. How does the delegations one vote get decided?
Before the passage of the 20th Amendment, the terms of Congress and the President both began on March 4, and the electoral votes were counted by the outgoing lame-duck Congress, and any cases where the House or Senate would make the decision would be done by the lame-duck body.
In 1801 (prior to the 12th Amendment), Thomas Jefferson and Aaron Burr were Democrat running mates, and each received an electoral vote from every one of the supporters. They thus, both received a majority of the electoral vote. In this case, the Constitution provided that the House decide among the top 2 candidates (rather than the top 5, which would have been the case if none had a majority).
The Federalists had a majority in the outgoing House, but did not control a majority of the delegations. They considered simply putting off the electoral count, but then decided to throw their support behind Burr. There were 16 States, and they voted 8 for Jefferson, 6 for Burr, and 2 not voting because their delegation was split (Maryland 3:3 and Vermont 1:1). It was not until a week and 37 ballots later that the deadlock was broken, and Jefferson elected. Burr became Vice President. If the Federalists had succeeded in electing Burr, then Jefferson would have become (continued as) Vice President.
The 1801 election resulted in the passage of the 12th Amendment, which separates the election of the President and Vice President, and also explicitly provided for the case where the House was unable to elect a President by the start of his term. I suspect that one reason that the Senate chooses the VP between the top 2 candidates (vs the House choosing the President from among the top 3), was to make the election of one almost certain.
In 1824, no Presidential candidate received a majority of the electoral votes (all candidates were Democrat-Republicans. IN the Vice Presidential race, John C Calhoun received about 3/4 of the electoral votes). In 1825, the outgoing Congress elected John Quincy Adams on the first ballot (with 13 of 24 state ballots). The intrigue in the House contributed to the belief that Andrew Jackson had been denied election warranted by his popular support, and accelerated the trend towards choosing electors by popular vote.
The 20th Amendment moved the start of congressional and presidential terms to January, and staggered them so that it is the incoming Congress that would count the electoral votes, and decide who would become President or Vice President in cases of non-majority electoral support.
