Realistically, the Americans Elect movement shouldn't make enough of an impact to win any electoral votes in November. But, what happens if they do?

Frontloading HQ talks with the group's Campus Director, Nick Troiano, about what would happen if they win a state or two in November. It raises the possibility that it may deny one of the major party candidates an outright electoral victory.

It's a highly unlikely scenario, but one that bears discussion since the group should be on the ballot in all 50 states in November.

Americans Elect has planned for such a contingency. Under a scenario where the Americans Elect candidate receives some electoral votes and no candidate has a majority, the election does not automatically default to the House. The election only goes to the House if, in December when the selected electors gather in state capitols across the country and transmit their votes, no candidate has a majority. The House is not a setting where an Americans Elect candidate is going to fare all that well, what with there being no Americans Elect infrastructure there. Now, the greater the share of electoral votes the group's candidate has, the more likely his or her electors are to play a large role. No, they won't make any difference in the House -- for obvious reasons -- but the provision in the group's rules triggered under this scenario calls for the online convention delegates who chose the nominee in the first place to reconvene. That convention would then decide which of the two major parties' candidates to throw their support behind.



...in the electoral college vote.





That would, first of all, prevent the outcome of the election from hinging on a delegation-by-delegation vote in the House of Representatives, but would, secondly, provide the group with some influence, some leverage, in the election itself and its aftermath.