90 Politics and elections
of victory gained by the successful candidate. In 1960 John Kennedy had a
popular vote majority of only 0.1 per cent over Nixon, but he finished up
with 62 per cent of the Electoral College vote to Nixon’s 36 per cent. In 1964
President Johnson’s 61 per cent of the popular vote turned into 90 per cent
of the Electoral vote. On the other hand, it is possible for a candidate to be
elected with fewer popular votes than his rival, as happened in 1876, 1888
and, of course, in 2000.
After each decennial census the allocation of seats in the House of Repre-
sentatives is revised to take account of shifts of population, and this leads to
the reallocation of Electoral College votes among the states. The population
trends of the second half of the twentieth century reflected the fact that, as
a result of technological changes, the heavy industry that characterised the
North and East of the United States was in decline, whilst the new informa-
tion technology based on the development of computers and other electronic
devices was able to be undertaken much more widely across the country. The
attractions of living and working in the warmer climate of the South and
West drew many people to move to those areas. California’s Silicon Valley
became the iconic home of the software industry, and Florida attracted re-
tired citizens in droves. Immigration also affected different areas to differing
degrees; the Cubans concentrated in Florida, other Latinos in California and
other Southwestern states. The consequence of these population changes was
a shift of political power to the South and West, making California, Texas
and Florida much more significant in presidential elections, and reducing the
importance of New York, Illinois or Pennsylvania.
The most dramatic result of this eighteenth-century method of electing
the president occurs if no candidate succeeds in obtaining an overall majority
of the vote in the Electoral College. In this case the House of Representa-
tives decides the election, by a rather extraordinary procedure. The House
chooses a president from the three top names in the Electoral College ballot,
each state delegation exercising one vote, irrespective of the number of members in
the delegation, or of the population of the state. Thus the state of California
would have the same voting power as Nevada or New Mexico. Each state
delegation determines how to cast its vote by a majority vote within the del-
egation. As the delegation would usually be divided between the two parties,
voting within delegations might go along party lines, but in some situations,
the members of the House might vote across party lines to choose a com-
promise candidate, or even in order to reject a candidate of their own party
to whom they objected. The outcome of such a vote in the House could be a
most extraordinary choice, in which the expression of the popular will might
be ignored. Other even more bizarre possibilities exist. The Constitution
provides that to be elected a candidate must receive an absolute majority of
votes in the House, as in the Electoral College, but the former can go on, bal-
lot after ballot, until a result is reached, whereas there is only a single ballot
in the College. However, suppose that a deadlock ensues, and no president
is elected. The Constitution provides that in such a situation, if no president