The Electoral College is a method of indirect popular election of the President of the United States. Instead of voting for a specific candidate, voters in an indirect popular election select a panel of individuals pledged to vote for a specific candidate. This is in contrast to a popular election where votes are cast for an individual candidate. For example, in a general presidential election, voters select electors to represent their vote in the Electoral College, and not for an individual presidential candidate.
The authors of the Constitution put this system in place so that careful and calm deliberation would lead to the selection of the best-qualified candidate. Voters in each state actually cast a vote for a block of electors who are pledged to vote for a particular candidate. These electors, in turn, vote for the presidential candidate. The number of electors for each state equals its Congressional representation.
After Election Day, on the first Monday after the second Wednesday in December, these electors assemble in their state capitals, cast their ballots, and officially select the next President of the United States. Legally, the electors may vote for someone other than the candidate for whom they were pledged to vote. This phenomenon is known as the "unfaithful" or "faithless" elector. Generally, this does not happen. The candidate who receives the most votes in a state at the general election will be the candidate for whom the electors later cast their votes. The candidate who wins in a state is awarded all of that state’s Electoral College votes. Maine and Nebraska are exceptions to this winner-take-all rule.
The votes of the electors are then sent to Congress where the President of the Senate opens the certificates and counts the votes. This takes place on January 6, unless that date falls on a Sunday. In that case, the votes are counted on the next day. An absolute majority is necessary to prevail in the presidential and the vice presidential elections, that is, half the total plus one electoral votes are required. With 538 Electors, a candidate must receive at least 270 votes to be elected to the office of President or Vice President.
Should no presidential candidate receive an absolute majority, the House of Representatives determines who the next President will be. Each state may cast one vote and an absolute majority is needed to win. Similarly, the Senate decides who the next Vice President will be if there is no absolute majority after the Electoral College vote. Elections have been decided by Congress in the past. The House of Representatives elected Thomas Jefferson President in the election of 1800 when the Electoral College vote resulted in a tie. When the Electoral College vote was so split that none of the candidates received an absolute majority in the election of 1824, the House elected John Quincy Adams President. Richard Johnson was elected Vice President by the Senate when he failed to receive an absolute majority of electoral votes in the election of 1836.
The President-elect and Vice President-elect take the oath of office and are inaugurated two weeks later, on January 20th.
Note that the discussion on this page is mostly written around a 269-269 tie between two candidates. However, much of the same would come into play if a third party or independent candidate wins enough electoral votes to prevent any candidate in the race from reaching 270. The 2020 interactive electoral college map allows you to assign electoral votes to a 3rd party.
Game it out: Electoral College Tie Finder 2020 Interactive Map
It takes 270toWin. If neither candidate gets a majority of the 538 electoral votes, the election for President is decided in the House of Representatives, with each state delegation having one vote. A majority of states [26] is needed to win. Senators would elect the Vice-President, with each Senator having a vote. A majority of Senators [51] is needed to win.
State House delegations can cast their vote for president from among the three candidates receiving the most electoral votes, while Senators are limited to the top two candidates in their vote for Vice-President.
It is important to note that an apparent tie on election night does not mean that there is actually a tie. The Electors meet on December 14, 2020 [the first Monday after the second Wednesday in December] to cast their votes. Only about half the states have laws requiring their Electors to vote for the popular vote winner. It is possible that an Elector could cast his or her vote for another person. We saw that in the 2016 election, when seven* Electors were 'faithless'.
In a 269-269 tie, as long as that rogue vote wasn’t for the other major candidate in the race, this wouldn’t be an issue. Both candidates would still be short of the required 270. However, imagine a scenario where a single Elector in a single state switched their vote to the other candidate in the tie --- the vote would be 270 to 268. While very unlikely, this kind of vote has happened before [most recently in 1968, although the electoral vote that year wasn’t close].
More than likely, the tie election would remain undecided after the Electors voted. The Congress meets in joint session on January 6, 2021^ to count the electoral votes [this count happens whether the election is close or not]. If no candidate has reached 270 Electoral Votes, then the House and Senate take over and elect the President and Vice-President, respectively. Note that the newly elected 117th Congress will be sworn in on January 3rd, 2021. It is that new Congress that would take on this responsibility.
Who would win the presidency in a tie?
In this partisan era, it is a reasonable assumption, at least to start, that the vast majority of members would vote along party lines. That in mind, let's look at who has the majority in each state.
The GOP held a decided 32-17 edge in control of these state congressional delegations prior to the 2018 midterms. With Democratic gains in that election, the Republican edge narrowed to 26-22. In 2019, Michigan Republican Justin Amash became an independent, breaking that state's tie. As a result the current split is 26-23, with one tie [Pennsylvania].
What about after the 2020 House elections? As noted earlier, it is the new House, seated in January, 2021 that would be voting. We have a new feature for that, called 'State View', that is associated with the House Interactive Map. Try it out for the 2020 Consensus by clicking or tapping the image below.