Might have been asked before: If the electoral college ties, the Presidential election goes to the House. What if the House has an even number of Republicans and Democrats and goes down the partisan middle?
If no candidate receives the required majority in the Electoral College to become President and the election is sent to the House of Representatives, the first thing to understand is that the votes are not cast individually. Instead, the vote is decided by state delegations (whose individual members of Congress vote as a block), and resolving the undecided election would require an absolute majority of states (at least 26) in order for a candidate to be elected.
So, to break it down more: there are 435 individual members of the House of Representatives, but in the case of an undecided election of the President that is thrown into the House for a resolution, the members don't cast individual votes. Instead, they gather in their respective state delegations and cast their votes within their state's caucus -- the candidate who wins the majority of votes within the state delegation, "wins" that state. Once a candidate wins an absolute majority of state delegations that candidate is elected President.
Now, there are, of course, 50 states, so what happens if the votes of the state delegations are split 25-25 and we still have no winner? We simply take another ballot. And, if necessary, another and another and another... The voting in the House of Representatives continues on-and-on until a candidate finally wins a majority of state delegations. It's like a Papal Conclave -- we must have a winner! -- without the world's most low-tech method of excitement: the fumata bianca.
A few more important particulars to note if a Presidential election is thrown into the House of Representatives because nobody won a majority of Electoral votes:
•The House must choose between the leading Presidential candidates who received Electoral votes, they can't just plug anyone that they want in there. Of course, this is usually just two candidates. However, the last time the election was decided by the House (1824), there were four candidates who split the Electoral vote: Andrew Jackson, John Quincy Adams, William H. Crawford, and Henry Clay. In such a case, the House is limited to deciding between the top three vote-getters in the original Electoral College tally.•Advances in technology and transportation has all but eliminated the possibility of state delegations being absent from the proceedings, but it is mandatory for at least 2/3 of the state delegations to be present in order for the House to decide the election.•All other Congressional business takes a backseat to an undecided Presidential election thrown into the House. The House begins voting as quickly as possible and continues until there is a winner who qualifies.•If we reach Inauguration Day and still don't have a President-elect, the person who won an Electoral College majority as Vice President becomes President. If there is also no Vice President-elect, the House how and who to choose the person who will become Acting President until somebody qualifies as President. (An undecided Vice Presidential election is resolved by the U.S. Senate.)
The House of Representatives has decided two Presidential election -- most famously the aforementioned 1824 election in which Andrew Jackson won a plurality of Electoral votes against John Quincy Adams, William H. Crawford, and Henry Clay, but lacked the required majority necessary to clinch the Presidency. The House ended up electing John Quincy Adams, a result that Jackson and his supporters chalked up to a "Corrupt Bargain" between JQA and Henry Clay, who became Secretary of State under President Adams.
The first election decided by the House was the 1800 campaign. At the time, the top vote-getter in the Electoral College was elected President and the person who finished second was elected Vice President. While there was no official designation between the Presidential and Vice Presidential candidates, going into the 1800 campaign, Democratic-Republicans unofficially saw Thomas Jefferson as the Presidential candidate and Aaron Burr as the Vice Presidential candidate. When Jefferson and Burr ended up tied in the Electoral College, Burr saw an opportunity to snatch the Presidency up for himself, decided not to step aside for Jefferson, and the election was thrown into the House. Alexander Hamilton, a Federalist leader, had issues with both Jefferson and Burr, but he hated Jefferson just a little bit less than Burr. Hamilton influenced the Federalist support in Congress that Jefferson needed to clinch the Presidency and Burr ended up as Vice President. As we all know, Burr never forgot Hamilton's role in costing him the Presidency and he ended up killing Hamilton in a duel while still Vice President of the United States.
Incidentally, just in case anybody was wondering, a Vice Presidential election has only been thrown into the Senate for a decision on one occasion -- 1836. Richard Mentor Johnson had been a staunch supporter of Andrew Jackson and the outgoing President Jackson wanted to reward him. While Jackson had almost seemingly handpicked Martin Van Buren as his chosen successor in 1836, Old Hickory definitely chose Johnson as the Democratic Vice Presidential candidate that year, insisting that the Democratic National Convention nominate Johnson as VP. The Democrats nominated Johnson as Van Buren's running mate, but Johnson was extremely unpopular in the South. Despite being from Kentucky, Johnson openly kept a former slave as his common-law wife and raised their mixed-race children as white, free, and legitimate. Many Southerners of his own party steadfastly refused to support Johnson's candidacy for Vice President even as they supported Van Buren for President. This led to four candidates splitting the vote for Vice President in the Electoral College -- Richard M. Johnson, John Tyler, Francis Granger, and William Smith. While Johnson had a solid plurality of Electoral votes for VP, he lacked the majority required for election that Van Buren had won as President.
In the case of a Presidential election deadlocked in the Electoral College, the House settles the dispute by a vote between the top three vote-getters, at most. When a deadlocked Vice Presidential election is decided by the U.S. Senate, only the top two contenders in the Electoral College are considered. So, the undecided election for Vice President in 1836 came down to Johnson and Granger, and Andrew Jackson was happy to see the Senate elect his choice for VP, Richard Mentor Johnson, to join his chosen successor as President, Martin Van Buren.
(Four years later, neither President Van Buren or Vice President Johnson were as lucky. The Democrats renominated Van Buren, but Southerners were no longer the only opposition to the scandalous Richard Mentor Johnson. At the Democratic Convention in 1840, Democrats refused to renominate Johnson, Van Buren refused to nominate another VP, and Van Buren headed into the general election season without a running mate. Still hoping to continue in the job, Johnson simply campaigned for VP on his own and ended up as President Van Buren's de facto running mate. Johnson's presence or absence had no discernible impact on the campaign -- no matter who his running mate was, the incumbent President Van Buren was trounced on Election Day by Whig candidate William Henry Harrison.)
