Featured Image Credit: Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images / Scott Olson/Getty Images
Topics: Donald Trump, Kamala Harris, US News
Yasmeen Hamadeh
Topics: Donald Trump, Kamala Harris, US News
It's a close race in this year's presidential election as polls continue to show a neck-and-neck break between candidates Donald Trump and Kamala Harris.
While the verdict will likely come down to a handful of swing states, in the historically rare chance that the Electoral College finds itself in a tie, there are measures in place to determine who will be the next president and vice president.
For a tie to occur, each candidate would have to win 269 electoral votes.
But what would happen next?
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Well, the 12th Amendment rules that the president would be chosen by the House of Representatives and the vice president by the Senate.
The newly elected House of Representatives taking office in January will meet to count the electoral votes.
Once it's been confirmed that no candidate has a majority of electoral voters, House lawmakers will then break the tie by having each state's delegation submit a single vote.
At that point, a majority of 26 states would be needed to determine who the next president is.
The Republican party has a majority in the House of Representatives with 26 state delegations, meanwhile the democratic party has 22 delegations. Two states, Minnesota and North Carolina, are tied.
Notably, while Washington, D.C. has three electoral votes in the presidential election, it would not have a vote in the House in the case of a tie because it is not a state.
House lawmakers would be able to list their top three candidates, but in practice, the choice will likely be a toss-up between Trump and Harris.
Meanwhile, a vice president will be selected by a simple majority vote in the Senate. All senators would have the chance to cast a single vote, and would have to choose between the two highest-scoring vice presidential candidates in the Electoral College.
In this case, the choice will be between Senator JD Vance or Minnesota Governor Tim Walz.
This ruling means that it's possible, although rare, that the president and vice president could be from different parties.
In the off-chance the House is also not able to select a president, then the person elected as vice president by the Senate would serve as president while representatives continue to vote.
Under the Presidential Succession Act of 1947, if both the Senate and House do not come to a decision, then a speaker of the House would serve as president. However, the aforementioned scenarios have never happened in American history.
Although an even split in the Electoral College is remarkably rare, scenarios that could lead to it include a third-party candidate winning some of the electoral votes or if there are 'faithless electors' who decide to break their pledge and vote for a candidate other than the one who won the state's popular vote.