What if the Presidential election ends in a tie?

[Nym90]

It could happen, and it would be good to get some ideas now. Even if it doesn't happen this year, we should do something about this for future races...the Constitution does not address this.

[Blerpiez]

Clause 5. If no Presidential candidate receives a majority of the vote, the Senate shall determine the outcome of the election by voting a majority for one of the candidates whose name is on the ballot.

The senate votes for president between the three tickets

[Nym90]

Thanks Blerpiez. I must have overlooked this.

It's still worth debating whether or not we should change the law though. Although this seems as fair as any way to do it. Similar to the way it's done in real life.

[Nym90]

Ah, but what if the Senate is equally divided 5-5? It could well happen this year even...given the likely makeup of the new Senate, I could very well see an even split there too.

[Gustaf]

Hm, good point. I think a run-off is reasonable. It seems really wrong to count first preferences or have the senate decide, since this sort of ircumvents the system we're using. The president should be elected by the people, using preerential voting.

[Nym90]

Though with preferential voting, we already have a runoff basically...that's the entire idea. It's instant runoff voting (as it is often known). With a runoff, everybody would have to vote again, and almost no one would change their vote I'd think, at least not differently than their original preference between the two surviving candidates. It would be a battle of turnout essentially.

First choice votes as a tiebreaker would make some sense...if both had equal support among the whole electorate, it would make sense to make the tiebreaker be the candidate who has the greatest depth of support.

For this election though, since the Constitution says the Senate will decide, I think we should do that. It's an issue to consider for the future though.

[Gustaf]

Though with preferential voting, we already have a runoff basically...that's the entire idea. It's instant runoff voting (as it is often known). With a runoff, everybody would have to vote again, and almost no one would change their vote I'd think, at least not differently than their original preference between the two surviving candidates. It would be a battle of turnout essentially.

First choice votes as a tiebreaker would make some sense...if both had equal support among the whole electorate, it would make sense to make the tiebreaker be the candidate who has the greatest depth of support.

For this election though, since the Constitution says the Senate will decide, I think we should do that. It's an issue to consider for the future though.

The thing is, it doesn't necessairly show that. If we have 2 major candidates and 1 suffer an insurgency who takes away a lot of votes that could affect that candidate's number of first preference votes. For example, your vote count would probably be a lot lower if the UL had decided to field a candidate. The point is, if we are electing a candidate through preferential voting we should be true to the spirit of that, IMHO. Obviously the senate will decide in this election should it have to, but I am inclined against that sort of system in the longer run.

[Nym90]

Agreed, I can see what you are saying now. A good point.

Having the Senate decide it is the closest approximation to the way it works in the US. I'm honestly undecided myself...we'll have to debate it and decide if we want to change after the election.

[TheWildCard]

My 2 cents

I say we should wait and cross this bridge when/if we come to it... I personally think the Senate is the only way to do it that reflects real life... then again we have preferential voting so the real life stuff doesn't really matter too much I suppose.

[Fmr. Gov. NickG]

In other preferential voting elections I have seen, ties in the final run-off were determined by who got the most first place votes in the first round.   Ties for last place (to see who gets eliminated first) were determined by holding an "instant run-off" between the tied candidates among all voters.

I don't know how actual countries that use PV resolve ties, but of course they would be were rare with thousands or millions of voters.

[Jim Valvano]

Which Senate would decide though? The outgoing senate or the newly elected senate?

[Nym90]

Newly elected Senate would be the fairest.

[Gustaf]

Newly elected Senate would be the fairest.

Yeah, I agree that the newly elected senate would be fairest. But it is actually rather concievable that the senate could be tied. If that happens we have a problem....we can definitely not count first preference votes for this election, since that would be altering the rules after people have voted. Some people might have voted differently if they had known that to be the case.

[Clay]

I voted Other.

The top two candidates should duke it out in a mud fight.

[Nym90]

I'll go for that.

I'm 6'3", 220 lbs, I'd like my chances.

[Gustaf]

I'll go for that.

I'm 6'3", 220 lbs, I'd like my chances.

Such an arrangement would be against all democratic principles!