Since Barkley no longer around, someone has to take up the slack: it seems that you don't have to have a tie in the electoral college to throw the election to the House of Representatives. The two houses, voting as a whole, can decide in January not to accept the electoral votes of a particular state if they considered them tainted -- Florida, just for an example. In that case, neither candidate would have the 270 votes necessary to get elected, and the house would do the electing, with each delegation voting as a single unit, etc., under which system the Republicans have a sizeable advantage.
One last twist I didn't realize before -- when the house selects the President in this fashion, the Senate selects the VP. And in that scenario, Gore would still be the presiding VP and Lieberman would be voting as a Senator. So if Cantwell wins, the Democrats would win a tie.
Anyway, that's what they say at cnn.com.
Michael
__________________________________________________________________________ Michael Pollak................New York City..............mpollak at panix.com