Please Fix The Issue of Ties

I read somewhere that there is an internal mechanism within the game regarding the electoral college tie. It mirrors the role of the House of Representatives when there is an electoral college deadlock.

If you are playing as a Democrat, you have a built in disadvantage. The House of Representatives is controlled by Republicans. Given the way the parties' voters are unevenly distributed around the country, the Republicans look set to retain a House majority even if the Democrats were to win the Congressional popular vote, as was the case in 2012 when they got 1.4 million more votes than the GOP but ended up with only 201 seats. This problem is exacerbated by the gerrymandering  Republican Governors and state legislators carried out after the 2010 mid-terms.

Even if the Democrats were to win a Congressional majority, their Presidential candidate will still probably lose in the House of Representatives. If Democrats only pick up seats in the major blue states like California, New York, Illinois, New Jersey and Maryland, plus a handful of marginal seats in the swing states they carry, they will not have control over a majority of state delegations to the House. You see, it is one state delegation, one vote. In other words, [hypothetically] if Texas has 12 Democratic Congressmen/women  and the GOP has 24, the 12 Democrats cannot cast a vote for Hilary or Bernie or whoever. They are bound by the wishes of the majority of the state delegation. The same thing goes for the half a dozen GOP representatives in California's 53 strong House delegation.

Its a stupid system, but its in the Constitution. 

Um, the system is stupid, yes, but not for anything you said.  The delegates are bound to who wins the state and who wins the state is based on...the popular vote in that state.  There is nothing confusing or wrong with that.  In fact, what it sounds like you are talking about is something like...Hillary cannot win Texas because...the delegates are bound to the voters...um, thanks for that Sherlock.  So basically what you are saying is, the voters in the state decide who gets those electoral votes.  Yep, that is how it works    And the democrats have an advantage because their cause connects to more people.  There are 15% more people who identify as democrat than republican.  That is why when Fox News goes "LOOK, they polled more democrats than republicans and therefore these polls are off because of that!" its hilarious.  These polls are RANDOM.  The fact that more people identify as democrats than republicans is why there are more democrats in every poll, not because they are specifically chose.  So, not only do the demographics favor democrats, and the popular vote, but now finally the electoral map favors democrats in a new way like never before as more and more minorities and immigrants come in and set up in states that didn't previously have minorities and suddenly these white states that used to always go republican are falling away.  Virginia, North Carolina, Colorado, Nevada and Georgia and Arizona are next.  And then there are the states republicans used to think they could compete in like Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, Oregon & New Hampshire have basically become electoral fool's gold for republicans.  Bottom line:  fewer angry whites, fewer resentful and bigoted and racist whites and fewer old whites being replaced by much more liberal and tolerant younger generations and minorities will be the death of the republican party as it now stands.

Hi Avon

I think you misunderstood me. Firstly, I am a Democrat. Secondly, I wasn’t talking about the Electoral College, although I believe it needs reforming. I was talking about the insanity and unfairness of the constitutional provisions that are meant to resolve a 269-269 tie.

I will try to be more articulate and concise.

In the event of a tie, the House of Representatives picks the President and the Senate elects the Vice President.

However, the Representatives are not necessarily allowed to vote according to their party or their conscience. They are bound to vote according to how the majority of their congressional delegation votes. And each state gets exactly one vote.

So, to win, the candidate needs the support of 26 House of Representatives state delegations out of 50.

And the system does disadvantage Democrats because of gerrymandering.

For example, in 2012, Obama won Pennsylvania by 5.39%. His popularity boosted the Democratic turnout for the Congressional races. The Democrats won 2,793,538 votes against the Republicans’ 2,710,070. However, here is the catch. The Democrats won 83000 more votes, but because of concentrated support and gerrymandering, they actually lost seats in 2012. The Democrats won 5 Congressional districts in Pennsylvania, while the Democrats won 13.

This means, that Hilary could win Pennsylvania by eight points but if ;[a] there is an electoral college tie [b] the Republicans retain the majority of Pennsylvania House seats and ;[c] this pattern is repeated in all the purple states you mention; her goose is cooked and Trump is our next President.

It is unlikely the Republicans will lose many House seats because they are well dug in. Maybe they lose two in Pennsylvania. That will be eleven Republicans against 7 Democrats. It is highly unlikely that two or three of those Republicans will defect to elect a Democratic President, even if they personally loathe Trump. When the eleven Republicans meet with their 7 Democratic colleagues, they will overrule them and say that Pennsylvania’s single vote in the House will go to Trump. There will be nothing the 7 Democrats could do about it.

The Democrats won clear majorities of the popular vote for Congress in Michigan, Wisconsin and Virginia, but it didn’t translate to a majority of House Seats.

Bottom line is Hilary has to win 270 votes. If she wins 269 electoral votes, she will have to give a concession speech even if she has actually won the popular vote.

Plus Trump has other advantages. First, many Democratic voters are flocking to the Libertarian or Green Party Presidential candidates, taking votes away from Hilary the way Nader of the Greens took from Gore in 2000.

Secondly, Trump has the major advantage of being championed by Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin , who may try to rig the election for him.  After all, a President Trump would benefit Putin massively.

He could hack the voting machines and change the results. The CIA said it is possible.

Or he could try for something more spectacular.

Putin could circulate fake medical records for Hilary over the internet. Actually he may be doing that already.

He could hack into the New York Stock Exchange and the NASDAQ, and cause a crash.

He could hack into individual companies like General Motors and General Electric.

He would love to hack into the Obamacare websites during the upcoming enrolment periods. Given that one of the main health insurers, Aetna, announced a decision to pull out of Obamacare because the Justice Department vetoed a proposed merger, all it will take is one well timed and well-hidden cyber-attack to remind voters of the disastrous debut in 2013. It will be his goodbye present to Obama.

He could cause a crash in the bond markets as he allegedly considered doing in 2008-2009, according to Bush’s last Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson.

Putin may or may not try something. But the risk is there and he has the motives. He hates Obama, he hates America, he wants to return to the Cold War, he wants to re-establish the Russian Empire, he wants to wreck the West, and HE HATES HILARY.