(Puzzle, I hope) What's the smallest number of people that could pick the U.S. president?

I heard a guy on a talk show mentioning that even a state with only 8 people gets 3 full electoral votes and it got me thinking:

What's the smallest number of people that could pick the U.S. president?

I'm thinking that the answer would lie in finding the least populated states, figuring out how many of those states you'd need to get enough electoral votes, then adding up the number needed to get 51% in each of those states.

Sorry if this is already in a FAQ somewhere.

In actuality, in 2000 the president was picked by 9 people, who split 5:4 on the choice. However, your answer is probably better because in order for those 9 people to get their turn, more than 11 other people had to vote to turn the whole thing into a tie. However, I suppose in theory if nobody voted in the general election, someone could bring a lawsuit that would leave the whole thing in the Supreme Court again, so I think the answer is still 9 (or perhaps fewer, if some of the Supreme Court justices were to recuse themselves).

president?

1. This has occurred in 1865, 1881, 1901, 1963 (although some dispute this), and by different means in 1974.

The next smallest is 5. This occurred in 2000 (although some dispute this interpretation). A smaller number would be possible in this mode of picking if there were vacancies on the Supreme Court, or some of the justices were to recuse themselves.

The next smallest number that has actually occurred is 8, in 1877.

If you meant the smallest number of people to *elect* a president, the current theoretical minimum is 26, and the practical minimum is 56. This is based on the 12th Amendment:

# ...The person having the greatest number of votes for President, shall # be the President, if such number be a majority of the whole number of # Electors appointed; and if no person have such majority, then from the # persons having the highest numbers not exceeding three on the list of # those voted for as President, the House of Representatives shall choose # immediately, by ballot, the President. But in choosing the President, # the votes shall be taken by states, the representation from each state # having one vote; a quorum for this purpose shall consist of a member or # members from two-thirds of the states, and a majority of all the states # shall be necessary to a choice...

If at least one member from each of at least 33 states is present in the House when the question falls to it, and there are 26 states for which only a single member is present, then those 26 members would form a majority.

But in practice we can be sure that all members would be present and voting on such an occasion; and we can assume that a state would cast a vote only if a majority of its House members supported that candidate. In that case the practical minimum is 1 vote from the 7 states that only *have* one representative; 2 votes each from the 10 states that have 2 or 3; 3 votes each from the 7 states with 4 or 5; and 4 votes each the 2 states with 6 representatives, making 56 votes from 26 states. (See the Electoral College table below to see which states these are, subtracting 2 from the number of EC votes in each case, and ignoring DC, which is represented on the EC but not in the House.)

If there were more than two candidates (quite likely if the vote was going to the House in the first place) and a plurality of members from a particular state, rather than a majority, was considered sufficient for that state to cast its vote, then 2 votes from one state could be a plurality, and the above total of 56 would be theoretically reduced to 45.

I'm thinking that the answer would lie in finding the least populated states, figuring out how many of those states you'd need to get enough electoral votes, then adding up the number needed to get 51% in each of those states.

Oh, *popular* votes. For popular votes the answer is 0. This has never happened, but imagine a case where both the President-elect and the VP-elect die before the Electoral College votes. In practice, most likely people in their party would select a substitute candidate and the Electors pledged to the original candidate would vote for him. Or if no majority in the Electoral College was achieved that way, the election would fall to the House of Representatives. In any case, the person elected would not have received any popular votes for President or VP.

The total of 0 could also theoretically be achieved if there were 270 'faithless electors', i.e. electors who voted for someone other than the candidate they were pledged to.

Rather than continuing, I'll now quote the related question that Leroy Quet asked here in March:

I answered this as follows (having covered the 'faithless elector' case in a separate posting). All text from here on was previously posted at that time.

*

... I make the answer to be about 99.999988% (using year 2000 data for the sake of definiteness).

Right. Two states do this, Maine and Nebraska. More specifically, each state produces two electors based on the statewide popular vote and one for each congressional district. However, this does not affect the solution below.

The following table shows the voting-age population in each state and DC as estimated by the US Census Bureau for the date of the 2000 election <http://www.census.gov/Press-Release/www/2000/cb00- 125.html> (in thousands), sorted by this number, and the number of electoral votes each state had in the 2000 election. The last two columns simply show the cumulative totals of the other two numbers, reading down.

(Note that the voting-age population is not the exact correct measure

In liberal fantasyland. But in the real world Bush probably would have won a third count just like he won the first two.

Obviously, the smallest number of people which could pick the president is one, since zero couldn't do it and people come in discrete quantities.

George Weinberg schrieb:

Depends on what you count.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A12623- 2001Nov11.html : 'But the study also found that whether dimples are counted or a more restrictive standard is used, a statewide tally favored Gore by 60 to 171 votes.' 'The study by The Post and other media groups, an unprecedented effort that involved examining 175,010 ballots in 67 counties, underscores what began to be apparent as soon as the polls closed in the nation's third most populous state Nov. 7, 2000: that no one can say with certainty who actually won Florida. Under every scenario used in the study, the winning margin remains less than 500 votes out of almost 6 million cast.'

'The study did not credit Gore with the thousands of votes lost as a result of the infamous butterfly ballot in Palm Beach County. Many voters using the ballot became confused by the listing of presidential candidates on two facing pages and punched Gore's name and one of the candidates next to him, nullifying their vote.'

Cheers

To the personal remark, I'll just state that I'm an independent, and I seem never to have voted for the guy who won, starting with Nixon's first term. I mostly vote for 'third party' candidates, and by no stretch of the imagination am I what you'd consider a liberal.

To the substantive part, whether Bush would have won a recount is arguable, but in real life that recount did not take place. The final disposition of the election WAS determined by a vote of the Supremes, not a vote of the people.

And Sandra Day O'Connor is usually considered a swing vote, so it really all came down to a few brain cells in her head. As I think Jon Stewart pointed out in 2000.

Yeah, and when I vote, I vote libertarian, so what?

But saying that denying the recount = giving the win to Bush implies Gore 'should' have won, which is contrary to the evidence.

Bush was declared the winner because he got more votes in the initial count and the recount. In a vote as close as the 2000 Florida election, if you had enough recounts it's inevitable that eventually Gore would have won one of them, but there's no reason to think that that count would be more acurate than the ones Bush won.

If there had been a third count, and Bush won that one also, no doubt the left would still be claiming Bush stole the election.

My recollection of the recount conducted by the newspaper agencies was that if only the two counties Gore was seeking a recount in were

No, it does imply that at all. It says (and implies, if you will), that the election process was going forward under Florida's procedures, and by stepping in and making a ruling that stopped the process the Supreme Court gave the election to Bush. If you'll cast your mind back to 2000, you may recall that most people were very surprised that SCOTUS was willing to hear the case, specifically because their was concern about the separation of powers. I agree that it's not clear who would have won a full recount (such as Souter suggested in his dissent).

Here's an analogy that might help you see the difference: a woman is dying of cancer. Her retarded nephew is a member of a gang of thugs who break in, take her money, and give it to the nephew. She dies and it turns out her will names her retarded nephew as the beneficiary. Your argument is that no crime was committed, because the retarded nephew would have gotten the money anyway. I disagree.

We seem to have just about done 2000 to death. Would you care to defend the way the Republicans managed to get Hayes in above Tilden in 1876-1877?

Actually, it wasn't though, unless you're calling 'the courts can arbitrarily overrule the legislature and the executive' as part of Florida's election procedures, which I don't. That is to say, I don't think there's any question that the Florida courts acted grossly inapropriately in ordering another recount.

It's a crappy analogy, because it has no resemblance to the situation. What the Supreme court did, all the Supreme Court did, was to overrule a clearly politically motivated decsion by Florida's supreme court. Although Bush most likely would have won another recount, that's not the point. Bush didn't win because the courts declared him the winner, he won because the vote and the recount favored him.

As I mentioned, I'm not a Republican.