What happens if the American election is a tie?

Americano

The Spectator

Politics, News, News Commentary

4 • 714 Ratings

🗓️ 29 September 2024

⏱️ 31 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

America has a peculiar way of deciding national elections. Instead of a cumulative national vote, the president and vice president are determined by fifty separate state elections. The top ticket in each state (except Nebraska and Maine) receives all that state’s electoral votes, no matter how slim the margin of victory. Each state’s electoral votes are equal to its number of House members plus its senators. The winner needs 270 electoral votes.

What if, in this razor-thin election, both Donald Trump and Kamala Harris fall one vote short? Freddy Gray is joined by Charles Lipson, contributor to The Spectator and political scientist, to answer that question. You can read the rest of his piece here.

Join Freddy Gray a special live recording of Americano on Thursday 24 October. You can buy tickets at www.spectator.co.uk/electionspecial.

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	Hello and welcome to The Americano Show, a series of discussions about American politics, power and prejudices.
0:14.2	In each episode of this very brilliant show, we will bring you one very well-informed expert, guest, or possibly two, depending on
0:24.7	how we're feeling, and together we will try and get to the bottom of what is going on in the
0:31.0	United States. Before we get going, I would like to alert your attention to a very exciting, forthcoming event.
0:40.6	On the 24th of October, 24 this year, at 7.30pm in the Emanuel Centre in London,
0:50.2	the spectator will be holding a US election special event.
0:55.7	It's going to be hosted by me, Freddie Gray, and we will have a very exciting guest.
1:02.5	I cannot yet reveal the contractual reasons who this very special guest is.
1:08.4	But I think he or she or they will be exactly who Spectator readers want to hear about the US election from.
1:18.3	You can book a ticket to this very, very special event at Spectator.co.com.com.uk forward slash election special. And I would urge you to do that because I'm
1:32.2	pretty sure we're going to sell this thing out. Today we're going to be asking a very difficult question.
1:37.7	What happens if the American election is a tie? If the electoral college is split 269 to 269 between Kamala Harris and Donald
1:49.1	Trump, which is a remote but not impossible possibility, the election will be called a contingent
1:56.0	election and various rather complicated and hard to understand things will follow.
2:01.8	To guide us through this thicket of Americana, I'm delighted to be joined by Charles Lipson,
2:09.3	who is a professor of political science at Chicago and has written a piece about what might
2:15.6	happen in a contingent election. Charles, I'm sorry to talk to you about
2:20.7	such an impossible subject, but it could happen. I know that it's unlikely, but let me run you
2:26.3	through this scenario, which is not impossible. Donald Trump wins the swing states of Georgia,
2:34.0	Arizona, Nevada and North Carolina,
2:37.6	and Kamala Harris wins the more northern states of Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania.
2:45.0	But Trump surprisingly flips the second congressional district of Nebraska, the blue dot, as it's called, and gets one more vote in the electoral college.
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from The Spectator, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of The Spectator and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.