At Current Electoral Vote Predictor:
Even more unlikely news: A reader pointed this out to be. Suppose the EC is tied 269 to 269 and the House deadlocks 25 states to 25 states. This is exceedingly unlikely, but just suppose. Then the Senate gets to choose the vice president. Also suppose the new Senate is divided 50-50, a very real possibility. Then the sitting vice president, Dick Cheney, gets to cast the deciding vote, electing himself as the new vice president. In the absence of a president, Cheney would be acting president for four years. This is not likely to happen because the Republicans are virtually certain of controlling at least 26 state delegations in the House. Still, scenarios like this one support the case for electoral college reform.
I don't see how. First, the House would have to be deadlocked on the issue for the entire four years; according to the 20th Amendment, the Vice President under such circumstances would only be acting President until a President had qualified.
Second, there are too many such unlikely cases to stamp out with election reform, and it is clear that they have nothing to do with the electoral college, but with the line of succession. Another unlikely case is if no one qualifies for either President or Vice President; then acting President is determined by law, which would make, I presume the Speaker of the House - Dennis Hastert - acting President; although conceivably Congress could do things differently. Suppose other unlikely cases with just the Vice President: Bush resigns; Cheney becomes President. Bush is impeached; Cheney becomes President. Bush dies; Cheney becomes President. (Note to self: If you run for President, make sure to choose a Vice President your opponents find scarier than you; it's a defense against assassination.) Cheney kills Bush; Cheney becomes President (and, I hope, would be impeached). Cheney colludes with a majority of the Cabinet to declare Bush unfit for the Office; Cheney becomes President. Bush gets a law through Congress that puts the authority to determine the fitness of the President for office in an independent body, which declares him unfit; Cheney becomes President (and presumably Bush would respond by transmitting a declaration of his fitness and becoming President again, unless the body declares him unfit again, in which case Congress will decide the issue). These are all actually the same sort of case (the only real difference being the means, and whether the Vice President becomes President or acting President); the only difference in the above case is that it's harder for Cheney to become acting President (and, if he did, to stay acting President) that way.
This can be seen more clearly by looking at another unlikely way Cheney could become acting President for the next four years. If he were to receive enough votes in the Electoral College to become Vice President, but neither Bush nor Kerry do the same for President, and the House deadlocks for the entire four years, the same result occurs without Cheney voting himself into the Vice Presidency.
Third, if the distant possibility of a simultaneous deadlock in the Electoral College, and unbreakable (for four entire years!) deadlock due to a perfect split in the state delegations to the House, and a perfect split in the Senate is a reason for reform -- it's a very slight and distant one. You might as well say we need reform because nothing prevents Congress from passing a law authorizing the President to invade the United States, or because it's technically possible for a mentally insane President to stay in office if Congress deadlocks (if the Cabinet declares him unfit, but the President delivers a declaration of fitness, and Congress deadlocks for twenty-one days after it receives that declaration or it returns to session, the President returns to office), or because it's technically possible for a Vice President to become and to stay President by killing his predecessor (I originally typed 'successor', which would make no sense) if Congress doesn't impeach him. If Congress has become so utterly incompetent, no sort of reform will save us.
