2000 Election

My math teacher was explaining plurality and majority for the math concepts there in. In doing so she used the 2000 and 1992 elections to explain the concepts and the math involved. She also mentioned how things could have gone differently with a runoff election. Both of these had a third party candidate sckew the election from the two main runners. So to my point. What could have brought on a runoff election in 2000? Just the Supreme Court or....?
 
Legally, it would take a Consitutional amendment before hand, such as this:

1- The President of the United States of America together with the Vice President shall be elected to the same four year term on the day established by the Congress by the electorate of the various states. The electors in each state shall have the qualifications requsite for electors of the most numerous branch of state legislatures.

2- In the event that no Presidential or Vice Presidential candidate recieve a majority of the votes cast, a second election will be held on a day established by Congress, and within four weeks of first election, in which the electorate of the various states shall vote again, this time chosing between the candidates who received the first and saecond most votes in the first election. The winners of this election shall serve as President and Vice President of the United States for the upcoming term.

I suppose in theory, had the problems W/butterfly ballots, hanging chads and absentee ballots been a lot worse (God forbid), Florida's Secretary of State, Kathleen Harris could have refused to validate the results. That though wouldn't get you the runoff election you seek. It would only the Florida legislature selecting its own slate of electors and a mess for Congress to sort out in January when it received the electoral college vote results.

For a more recent example, look at last November's Minnesota US Senate race. The top 2 vote getters each received about 42% of the vote. It's a shining example of why there should be run off elections if no candidate wins a majority. Why hasn't that happened? Because there's no provision for it in the Minnesota Constitution. There is presently no provision in the US Constitution permitting a runoff election for the P/VP OTUS. No one and no body (judicial, legislative or executive) has the power to authorize/order a runoff presidential election.
 
2- In the event that no Presidential or Vice Presidential candidate recieve a majority of the votes cast, a second election will be held on a day established by Congress, and within four weeks of first election, in which the electorate of the various states shall vote again, this time chosing between the candidates who received the first and saecond most votes in the first election. The winners of this election shall serve as President and Vice President of the United States for the upcoming term.

Is this not in some way a runoff election?
 
Electoral side: assume Lord Grattan's runoff proposal gets passed in the 1970's by the large Democratic majority in Congress, as a little jab at Nixon becoming president in 1968 with 43% of the vote. Which elections will it affect?

1992 sees a runoff, but I fully expect Clinton to win again, even if it is more narrow electorally.

1996 is interesting, because Dole was making relatively big gains thanks to revelations about Clinton's Red China soft money. Is a repeat likely to affect anything? I doubt it, but the run-off will be closer than the general election...

EDIT: I fail, 2000 does see a runoff election.
 
Douglas is correct. In 1992 Bush would have had to get virtually all of Perot's votes to have a chance and all estimates agree that between 30 and 40 percent of Perot's voters would have picked Clinton next.
 
If you have a runoff in 1992 between Clinton and Bush, Clinton still comes out on top, plus or minus a few states where he might have won or lost with Perot on the ballot.

1996 would probably still go to Clinton in a runoff because of the strong economy, his positive image at this point, etc.

Without Nader in a 2000 runoff, I have to think that Gore would pull through and win the election. So really, you only have one major shift in electoral history.
 
If you have a runoff in 1992 between Clinton and Bush, Clinton still comes out on top, plus or minus a few states where he might have won or lost with Perot on the ballot.

1996 would probably still go to Clinton in a runoff because of the strong economy, his positive image at this point, etc.

Without Nader in a 2000 runoff, I have to think that Gore would pull through and win the election. So really, you only have one major shift in electoral history.

Something occurred to me though...we're assuming these elections run without knowledge of a runoff.

1976 and 1980 could be "turned" into runoffs if a third-party is "encouraged" to participate by one of the parties, or simply gets enough support since people consider the runoff election to be the "real" one. 1976 is a few thousand votes from a runoff already...it could be a goal of a third party to force a runoff just as a sort of statement showing they have strong support from a significant portion of America. A stronger showing by Anderson could send Carter and Reagan at it again in 1980.

Conversely, a runoff also means that third party runs can never "win"...throwing the election to the House isn't really doable anymore. With that in mind, does Perot run twice?

Is there less room for compromise at party conventions? "We'll run both of them, and when the other guy gets 49% of the vote, we'll all gather behind whoever finishes second." Unlikely occurrences (which would suffer from butterflies) that might be worth thinking about: Reagan-Ford-Carter (means Carter wins handily, probably!), Carter-Kennedy-Reagan (probably means a runoff), and McCain-Hillary-Obama (McCain-Obama runoff?).

This is a more interesting question than appears on the surface.
 
Is this not in some way a runoff election?


Yes, this is an amendment abolishing the EC and providing for a run-off election. You asked "how can we get a runoff election for the 2000 election?" The answer is, you can't without a constitutional amendment, such as the one I "proposed" above being adopted and in force before the election. With such an amendment in place then, since no candidate received a majority of votes in 2000 you get a one on one contest between Bush & Gore. I believe that Gore would win the run off. With such an amendment in place in 1992 a runoff election victory would hinge on how Clinton & GHW Bush campaigned during the weeks preceding it. I honestly believe that the runoff election could go either way.
 
Yes, this is an amendment abolishing the EC and providing for a run-off election. You asked "how can we get a runoff election for the 2000 election?" The answer is, you can't without a constitutional amendment, such as the one I "proposed" above being adopted and in force before the election. With such an amendment in place then, since no candidate received a majority of votes in 2000 you get a one on one contest between Bush & Gore. I believe that Gore would win the run off. With such an amendment in place in 1992 a runoff election victory would hinge on how Clinton & GHW Bush campaigned during the weeks preceding it. I honestly believe that the runoff election could go either way.

I don't think that's how your amendment reads, though. You haven't "abolished" the EC at all...you just have a do-over if no one has 50% of the vote.

FWIW, this proposed bill doesn't end the possibility of electoral shenanigans...for instance, a candidate who gets 48% of the vote and 270 electoral votes wins the election outright over a candidate who gets 51% of the vote and 268 electoral votes. And, without abolishing the EC, you could still have the "loser" in the popular vote total win the election.

It's positively Byzantine, and I like it. :cool:
 

Raymann

Banned
I think everyone is forgetting that having a runoff would have drastically altered campaign strategies so we still don’t know who would have won. There would also have to be changes in election law, campaign finance law, along with a complete reshuffle of the FEC in addition to the previously mentioned Constitutional changes.

Personally I don’t like it. Elections (particularly in the US) are expensive as hell and the states wouldn’t want to shoulder that burden, especially states where there is a clear majority winner. It would also shorten the time the president elect has to prepare before inauguration. Obama, for instance, being a junior Senator and relatively new to DC, needed all the time to prepare so that when he was inaugurated he was able to hit the ground running. Finally, there is the federalism issue. States don’t like being told how to run their elections. Even now, the various states have different ways of choosing their electoral votes; most give them to the guy with the most votes, some divide them based on the percentage of the vote, and recently some have decided to give their to the person who won the most votes nationally. Every state has their own traditions and political leanings and in the end it really doesn’t serve us well to try to blend them all together.
 
For arguments sake, lets say a constitutional amendment is passed after 1968.
EC abolished, if no clear majority in national popular vote, two leaders in a run off.

No real problem until 1992. Perot dropped out because he thought he had no chance of winning. He stays in to the end, and finishes second, behind Clinton. So now you're looking at a straight Clinton-Perot contest.
 
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