So no President yet. Hmm.
So no President yet. Hmm. Strange.
One possibility that no one (to my knowledge) has raised yet: only 24 states and the District of Columbia require by state law that their Electors in the Electoral College cast their votes for the candidate that won the popular vote in that state.
Electors in some states that Bush won could choose to throw their Electoral College votes to Gore. In fact, this has happened seven times in the 20th century, and as recently as the 1988 race between Bush (Big George, not Dubya) and Dukakis, where one Elector from West Virginia cast his vote for Dukakis even though Bush had carried the state.
No election results have ever been altered due to these so-called “Faithless Electors,” but if ever there was an election that was ripe for some more turmoil, we’ve got one here. Perhaps Bush’s +4 margin of the Electoral vote and roughly -200,000 margin on the popular vote will get some Electors cogitating.
Say Bush carried the-much-contested Florida, but Gore takes as-yet-undecided Oregon. That gives Bush 271 Electoral votes to Gore’s 267 — a slender margin.
If only two of Bush’s Electors go faithless, that throws us into a 269-269 tie and the House of Representatives (which is still controlled by the Republican’s) would break the tie.
But if three Bush Electors go faithless . . . Gore is P.O.T.U.S.
And here’s the kicker: it’s totally consitutional for the Electors to vote however the hell they please.
Yo, Warren Christopher! Forget Palm Beach — start lobbying the Electoral College!