Third parties have not fared well in American politics over the last century or so, either having no impact on the Presidential race results though in a few cases potentially moving the winner from one party to the other (though not electing the third-party candidate). One example of the latter was when Teddy Roosevelt ran on the Bull-Moose party ticket in 1912 electing Woodrow Wilson and helping to elect a Democrat Congress.
Having said that since I tend to support the non-Trump wing of the Republican party, I have noticed a bunch of like-minded individuals making noises about supporting a third-party Presidential candidate.
The thought is that Trump has no chance of gaining 270 electoral votes. The hope is that with a serious third-party candidate, Hillary Clinton also would not get 270 electoral votes throwing the election into the House.
I decided to take a quick look at how that possibility would play out.
The method for electing the President is covered in Section 1 of Article 2 of the Constitution.
When we vote for President our votes, and the electoral votes that our state has, do not automatically end up associated with the candidate for President that carried our state. Instead we are actually electing Electors who themselves vote after the election results are finalized, and who generally, but not always, vote the way their state voted. As a side note a few states now allocate electoral votes both by Congressional district (one per district) and statewide (two for the state), a change I would personally support in general.
If no candidate for President receives 270 Electoral votes then the decision on who is elected President is sent to the House.
The original wording said that the House then conducted a vote among the receivers of the top five electoral vote totals. Each state in the House would receive one vote, the representatives of the state voting collectively as to who they should support. After the President was chosen then the candidate with the next highest number of votes would become the Vice-President. If no one had a majority of votes for Vice President then the Senate would pick the Vice President. Tie votes among a state’s representatives meant the state would cast a blank ballot.
In 1800 Thomas Jefferson and Aaron Burr tied with 73 electoral votes. Under the Constitution at the time, it was the previous House that voted for President. The House was controlled by the Federalists who had supported the incumbent and losing Presidential candidate, John Adams. It took the House 36 ballots to finally elect Jefferson President. The tie was broken by the now newly famous Alexander Hamilton who suggested supporting Jefferson over Burr, feeling that Jefferson was less dangerous (little principle versus no principle, no echo with today there).
This led to the passage of the 12th Amendment ratified in 1804. The 12th Amendment made the electoral votes combined for both President and Vice-President and reduced the number of possible candidates to the top three electoral vote getters. The selection for Vice-President would be still conducted in the Senate and would consider the top two electoral vote getters. Finally if the House did not select a president then the Vice-President would act as the President until the House made a final decision.
In 1933, parts of the 12th Amendment were replaced by Section 3 of the 20th Amendment. The most relevant change made related to this discussion was in Section 3 which indicated that Congress would have the authority to pass legislation to deal with situations where neither a President or Vice-President would be selected.
The legislation which covers this last situation is the Presidential Succession Act, United States Code 19. The law which evidently some consider unconstitutional as it is currently written and which has never had to be invoked establishes that if the House does not elect a President and the Senate does not elect a Vice-President then the Speaker of the House would become the Acting President until the House or Senate made a decision.
I suppose if the third party candidate was a serious Republican and the Republicans still controlled the House (which they probably will), then that candidate might then be elected President by the House (no controversy there!). But if not then that, boys and girls, would be one way to elect Paul Ryan the acting President of the United States.