What will and should happen with an electoral college tie?

[SteveRogers]

The House would vote largely along strict party lines. That being said, many representatives would be under a lot of pressure from their constituents to vote the way their district or their state voted. Of course you would also hear the argument that the House should respect the national popular vote. Some Congressmen from swing states/ districts would certainly take their "country first" points even in the face of threats from the party leadership. Still, these defections would probably not be enough to change the result. Republicans will almost definitely still control the House AND a majority of state delegations. Yes, Democrats will gain some seats. It would take a while to figure out the exact configuration of seats D's would have to win to control a majority of state delegations or produce a deadlocked result, but I can't imagine its a very likely outcome. Also, all the plausible electoral college tie scenarios involve Romney winning more states, so even if every representative voted the way their state voted, Romney would still win.

If Romney won the popular vote, then this would be seen as a clean victory. If however Obama won the popular vote but House Republicans chose Romney, well there's just no way to disguise that as anything other than the blatant partisan power grab that much of the public would view it as. Sure, Boehner could give an effective speech on the House floor about congress doing its constitutional duty and explain why the popular vote is irrelevant in this scenario. That may be a defensible position, but consider this: In the two months between the election and the House vote, everyone's going to see a million variations of the following poll.
"What do you think your congressman should base their vote for President on: 1. Their party 2. The way their state voted, 3. The way their district voted, or 4. The national popular vote?"
What do you think the numbers would be on that question?

Republicans might need to cut some sort of deal to save face with the public. Maybe they would agree to hold a vote an an amendment abolishing the electoral college. Or maybe they'd agree to concede the Vice Presidency to Biden.

Which brings us to the Senate. Most projections now show Democrats narrowly holding the Senate. So we could potentially get a Romney/ Biden administration. But assuming the House has already elected Romney, how much popular support would there be for the idea of electing a Democratic VP just to screw with the President for the next four years. Again, this would probably depend on who won the popular vote. What if Romney won the popular vote? Depending on how close the Senate is, it might just take one or two Democrats playing the "Country first" card and defecting (*cough* Joe Manchin*cough*)to swing the vote to Ryan.

There's also room for shenanigans at other points in the process. For example, all it would take is one faithless Republican elector to throw Ron Paul's name into the ring.