# Contingent Election A **contingent election** is the fallback the [[Twelfth Amendment]] triggers when no candidate reaches a majority of the electoral votes — 270 of 538. The House chooses the President from the top three electoral-vote recipients, **voting by state delegation, one vote per state**, with a quorum of two-thirds of the states and 26 states required to win. The Senate separately chooses the Vice President from the top two, each senator casting one vote. The distortion is the point: in a contingent election Wyoming's single-member delegation weighs exactly as much as California's, so a bloc of the smallest state delegations — a small minority of the population — can install a president. It has happened twice, in 1800 and 1824. If the House has not chosen by noon on January 20, the [[Twentieth Amendment]] makes the Vice President-elect act as President. See [[Electoral College Process Flow]]. This is a stub — expand with the 1824 case, the tie-scenario arithmetic, and the delegation-control math that makes this a live strategic target. ## See Also - [[Electoral College Process Flow]] - [[Twelfth Amendment]] - [[Twentieth Amendment]] - [[Electoral College]]