I learned something disconcerting this morning.
Those who are concerned about the integrity of the upcoming election foresee the possibility that the Trump campaign will contest the vote count in multiple states. If those challenges can’t be resolved in time to ensure that one candidate or the other obtains the 270 Electoral College votes required to win, the election would be decided by the House of Representatives.
Until today I assumed that scenario would ensure a Biden victory, since the Democrats have a majority in the House and seem very likely to retain it. But it turns out that an election decided in the House would not involve each House member having one vote; it would involve each state having one vote. And each state’s vote would, predictably, be determined by which party is in the majority among that state’s representatives.
As this article on 270toWin.com describes, in the current congress 26 state delegations in the House have a Republican majority and 22 have a Democratic majority. Two are tied. That means that if the House as currently constituted were to decide a presidential election, the Republican candidate would win.
It’s important to note, though, that if the upcoming presidential election were decided in the House, it would not be the current Congress that would make that decision, but rather the one that’s elected in November. Of course, we don’t yet know which party will be in the majority in each state’s delegation come January. But even if Democrats succeed at increasing their House majority in November, there is no guarantee that they will win a majority of the seats in the majority of the state delegations.
Yet another reason to reach for the Rolaids.