Washington
By ROBERT MACKAY

The Anderson kink in the electoral process

THE INDEPENDENT presidential candidacy of Rep. John Anderson of Illinois could prevent either President Carter or Republican Ronald Reagan from getting the 270 electoral votes needed to be elected president next month.

The possibility is slim, but it seems more probable at this juncture than the outright election of Anderson as president. Anderson's popularity has never surpassed the 25 percent mark in any national public opinion poll since announcing his independent candidacy.

But Anderson could conceivably grab off enough electoral votes to prevent the other candidates from winning a majority. In that case, the presidential election will be thrown into the U.S. House of Representatives, where Anderson has served for 20 years.

Each state's congressional delegation, no matter how big or small, would be given one vote. Thus, a candidate would have to receive 26 votes - more than half of the 50 states' votes — to win election in the House.

The Democrats are the majority in the House, but that does not necessarily mean the House would reelect Carter president. Those who assume party loyalty would dictate the choice could be surprised.

Members of the House, including the 24 from Illinois, would have to consider the political ramifications their vote might have on their reelection bids in 1982. Would an Illinois Democrat, or even a Chicago Democrat, risk the wrath of voters in his district by voting for Carter when Reagan carried his district — and possibly the state of Illinois — in the November election?

Each House member probably would base his or her vote on one of four options: party loyalty — "I'm a Democrat so I'll vote for Carter"; the winner of the national popular vote; the candidate who carries his-her state in the November election; or the candidate who carries his-her own congressional district.

Even if the House members took the safest route politically and vowed to vote for the candidate who carried their own districts, it would not assure Carter of reelection by the Democrat-controlled Congress.

If the 1976 election had been thrown into the House and every member had voted for the candidate who carried his own congressional district, President Gerald Ford would have been elected. Carter would have been elected under any of the other three options, because (1) he is a Democrat, (2) he won the national popular vote, and (3) he carried more states than Ford. But Ford carried 98 congressional districts that elected Democratic members of Congress and Carter carried 26 that elected Republicans. The difference would have given Ford the 26 votes in the House needed to win election.

Even if House members decided to vote along party lines, the election would not be certain. Today the Democrats have a majority in the delegations of 29 states and the Republicans have a majority in 12 states, with nine states split evenly between Democrats and Republicans. But in 10 states with a Democratic majority, a shift of just one seat in November would mean a loss of majority, and losing any four of them would mean less than enough states to give Carter a victory.

In Illinois, the delegation is comprised of 14 Republicans and 10 Democrats. The Democrats would have to capture three additional seats next month to become the majority, and that is unlikely. The Illinois delegation, if it followed party lines, would vote for Reagan. Also, the Republican candidate carried Illinois in the last three presidential elections.

Where does that leave Anderson, who would have created this giant mess? Well, assuming he does well in the election, some state delegations in the House might cast their votes for him. In that case, he might further gum up the works by preventing either Carter or Reagan from getting the 26 votes needed in the House for election.

Who becomes president if the House doesn't vote a majority for one candidate? Under the Constitution, the vice president, also chosen by the electoral college, would assume the presidential duties. If the electoral college doesn't give a vice presidential candidate a majority, that election goes to the Senate, where each senator casts one vote each. The last time that happened was in 1836 when Martin VanBuren's vice president, Richard M. Johnson, was chosen.

Two things to keep in mind, however: George Wallace, the last popular independent, third party presidential candidate, received just 46 of the 538 electoral votes in the 1968 election; and an Anderson campaign aide emphasized, "We don't expect the election to go into the House."

Anderson has said that if he loses the election he will probably retire from politics. He probably wouldn't have any choice if he threw the election into the House. The House membership, if forced to go through the political minefield described above, would probably rise up en masse to campaign against Anderson, even if he were running for dog catcher of Rockford. And voters, tired of reading and hearing about all the possibilities that could come forth from a presidential election in the House, probably wouldn't be too crazy about Anderson either.

October 1980/Illinois Issues/37