The piece that I have chosen to analyze is an article out of the USA Today written by Susan Page that is titled “President Romney, but Veep Biden?” I chose this piece because it discussed some interesting information about the Electoral College, something we discussed in Chapter 9 of class discussion. The Electoral College is a very exciting way to elect the President of the United States because it forces the candidates to strategize when determining which states they should pursue. There are a total of 568 possible “points” each candidate can earn and which leaves the possibility of a tie, something this article delves in to.
This article is about what exactly would happen if the upcoming Presidential election resulted in a tie. According to the author, a scenario she could see happening would include President Obama winning all of the Democratic states he should win and Governor Romney doing this as well. Now here is where it gets interesting, the battleground states Obama would need, include Michigan, Pennsylvania, New Mexico, New Hampshire, Ohio, and Wisconsin. Romney would need to claim North Carolina, Colorado, Florida, Iowa, Nevada, and Virginia. This would put the 2012 United States Presidential election at a 269-269 tie. The tiebreaker comes down to the 12th amendment, where it states that “each state delegation would get a single vote, determined by the state’s new congressional delegation” (Page). This would result in Governor Romney winning because there are currently 33 state delegations held by the Republicans. Now here is where it gets even more interesting if a tie occurs, the Senate would choose the Vice President which is currently controlled by the Democrats at 53-47, and therefore Mitt Romney would be the likely President with Joe Biden as the Vice President according to this formula. Now if for whatever reason the Senate tied in a 50-50 vote, the former Vice President would hold the tiebreak vote. There have been two ties in the...