12th Amendment Election, Anyone?

[Minister of Truth]

Its been a long time since the 12th Amendment process of electing a president spared us from a Jackson presidency for four years and handed us John Quincy Adams following the 1824 election. Here's my awesome conspiracy theory for how the "Establishment" can thwart Trump (or even Cruz) in the event of a Trump vs. Hillary election.

Let's say no one manages to win a majority of electoral votes. This is pretty much impossible in the modern R vs D race. Also, the 12th stipulates that the third candidate must be third place in the Electoral race. So, we're going to need a third party or independent candidate to carry a state, or to siphon off split Electors in Maine and/or Nebraska, or get a bunch of unfaithful Electors to cast votes for them (which would really cause a ruckus!).

Congress hates Cruz, the GOP establishment (and pretty much all non-RINOs as a whole) hates Trump, and the GOP controlled-House doesn't want to see Hillary elected president. So, when the election is thrown to the House, it votes for the candidate with likely fewer than 20 (it not 5) electoral votes and a tiny percentage of the popular vote.

This would be especially awesome if the candidate was Gary Johnson.

 

[evince]

it would be horrible

 

[/MSG/]

We really need to repeal the 12th Amendment. The entire point of a Vice President was to have someone in the opposition sitting in office, similar to the old two Consul system

 

[Minister of Truth]

Except the VP has no powers with which to counterbalance. The Founders actually were upset with the original method after 1796, because Federalists split the second-place vote enough to unintentionally elect Jefferson. Someone even raised the issue in Congress, but no one cared enough until after the election of 1800.