US Senate Elections 2014

US Senate Elections 2014

[www.ipredict.co.nz]

What happens in the case of a 50-50 tie?

Therewould be no Democratic majority but the Democrats will officially have 'control' due to the Vice-President being a Democrat.

Clarification please.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 06/26/2014 11:50PM by PK_Opulence.

The Democrats would be considered to have the majority in the event of a tie.

For clarity in this contract, the phrase "This contract will only close at $1 if the Democratic Party holds a majority of US Senate seats after the election or if the Democratic Party holds a majority of US Senate seats with support from Independents." in the judgement statement means that any independants caucusing with the Democrats will count as democrats for the purposes of deciding who has a majority, and similarly for independants caucusing with the Republicans.

Since the contract is actually refering to "control" of the Senate instead of having the majority, I would suggest that Admin might clarify in the actual contract wording that the contract would close at $1 if Democratic Caucus has 50 Senate seats plus the Vice Presidency. (Similar wording for Republican contract.)

Since the Vice President is not a Senator, I worry that the contract would be heavily disputed if the election results are 50-50, which is a very real possibiity this time. In my opinion, if the contracts as written are read literally, USSENATE2014.OTHER would pay the $1 instead of one of the others if the results are a tie with neither side holding a majority of the senators.

I worry that some of the volume in in USSENATE2014.OTHER is from people betting on a tie instead of the almost mathematically impossible event of a third party taking control of the Senate.