MIAMI (WSVN) - The race for the White House is winding down and the latest polls show the candidates are neck-and-neck, in what could be considered one of the closest presidential races in history, leaving many curious about what would happen if the results of the electoral votes end in a tie.
As election day drew closer, Vice President Kamala Harris and Former President Donald Trump spent their days drilling down on seven battleground states where poll after poll shows them tied or within the margin of error.
Both campaigns have to be hoping life doesn’t imitate art.
An even 538 electoral votes are up for grabs.
There has only been one tied election in American history: Thomas Jefferson and Aaron Burr in 1800.
Here’s just one way that could see history repeat itself:
If Vice President Harris wins this slate of states; Arizona, Nevada, one electoral vote from Nebraska, Wisconsin and Georgia, but Former President Trump wins Pennsylvania and Michigan it’s 269 to 269.
What happened in 1800 and could possibly happen in this unprecedented presidential election cycle is called a contingent election and it favors the Republican party.
“It ultimately means its overtime and now both candidates have to go into an overtime appeal and that’s really complex because that has to do less with the American people and everything to do with the composition of the incoming Congress,” said 7News political analyst Brian Fonseca.
Fonseca, of FIU’s Jack Gordon Institute for Public Policy, shared how members of Congress, sworn in on Jan. 3, would come into play.
“It’s the incoming Congress that selects the president in a contingent election,” said Fonseca. “The House will convene and select the president and then the Senate will convene and select the vice president, so Congress would have the authority, at that point, to determine who becomes president of the United States.”
Who will be the next leader of the free world is yet to be determined.
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