(Bill Shatzer) wrote in message ...
"ian maclure" ) writes:
On Sun, 18 Jul 2004 23:34:06 -0700, Fred the Red Shirt wrote:

[snip]

Elected by the Congress, like all Presidents in a joint session that
most Americans regard as a formality if they know about it at all.

Not quite.
The size of the electoral college is approximately the same
as Congress ( both houses ).
Congress only gets a direct vote if the Electoral College is
a dead heat.

'Tis the House of Representives, not congress as a whole, which can
select a president. And that duty falls on the HoR when no one
receives a majority of the votes in the electoral college. A dead
heat is not required.

The HoR selected John Quincy Adams over Andrew Jackson in 1825 even
though Jackson received more electoral votes - Henry Clay finished
3rd but secured enough electoral votes to deny either Jackson or
Adams a majority.

What you and Mr McClure and others are not considering is that it
is the Congress, meeting in joint session, that decides which
Elecotral votes to accept and which to reject. The USSC held in
1877 that the decision of the Congress in doing so is not
subject to judicial review.

So the Congress can see to it that no candidate recceives a
majority in the EC by selective rejecting electoral votes.

Not as silly as it sounds. Consider:

State laws dictating to electors how they should vote have been
ruled unconstitutional. So in a close election a small number
of maverick or corrupt electors could swing the vote in the
EC for a candidate who would otherwise have lost, and the Congress
can reject their votes.

--

FF