2020 US Election – The Electoral College Eclipsed!

An old illustration of the Electoral College meeting

In the last election post I explained why this Presidential Election is likely to devolve into a massive post election legal battle involving multiple state results. All due to the pandemic and mail in voting. No winner will be called on election night. We may have to wait weeks for a winner to be declared.

The deadline for getting the election results in for all states in December 14, 2020. That is when the Electoral College meets to cast the official votes for the next US President. Astrologically, it is also the date of the next Solar Eclipse. This makes this date very significant on the mundane level. There has never been a Solar Eclipse on the same day the Electoral College has meet ever in the history of the US. That is how significant the date is!

I checked this by the finding the dates throughout history when the Electoral College has meet and then, by comparing it the dates of every Solar Eclipse through US history. Two elections did come close. The elections of 1880 and 1936 occurred within a day of a Solar Eclipse. Nothing unusual happened for those elections in case anyone was wondering.

To create an astrology chart for the Electoral College Vote, a time of day must be determined. This is difficult, because the college meets in each state capital to cast their votes. While the day is specified by Congress, the law leaves open the exact of day the electors meet to be determined by each state. Here is a link to the best summary of each state’s laws for the Electoral College.

Some states don’t specify a exact time, others say the governor determines the time of day the electors meets, but about half the states give an exact time by law on when the electors for that state meet. The most common time of day is noon, but 11 AM, 1 PM, and 2 PM are also popular choices.

The earliest time I found was 10 AM EST for the state of Indiana. Because it is earliest known start time, I will use that time for the start of Electoral College Vote to create the astrology chart. The accuracy of this time should be questioned until the exact time the Electoral College meets in all states is known. This may not occur until after the election.

I set the location for this chart to Washington, D.C. because it is for the entire US. But I also looked at the chart for Indianapolis Indiana as the location in case it was significantly different. The chart are very similar, with the Solar Eclipse happening in the 11th House in both charts. The big difference is that Ascendant for the Washington D.C. chart is Aquarius, while it is Capricorn for the one in Indianapolis. This mover the Jupiter, Saturn, and Pluto conjunction from the 1st House in the local chart to the 12th House in the National chart. This may not be very significant though.

That is because the main action of the both charts is the 11th House Solar Eclipse. This means that Congress will be involved in this election, as the Electoral College is eclipsed or blocked from deciding it. The most likely outcome is that the Electoral College doesn’t elect a President forcing a Contingent Election in Congress on January 6, 2021.

Why do I think this will happen? If the legal battles for counting the mail in votes continue past the Electoral College date. Or one of more states submits the correct paperwork to Congress or multiple slates of electors, then according to different section of the Electoral Vote Act, Congress will be forced to decide if a state’s electoral votes are valid or not.

If this happens it is possible that the no one would have a majority of the electoral votes. This happened at least three times before in US history. During the election of 1800 for the Vice President in which the opposition’s Presidential candidate won it and lead to the 12th Amendment to the US Constitution. The election of 1836 for Vice President was also decided by a contingent election. Back then there was no question on who won, but some faithless electors caused the issue which was easily resolved by the Senate.

The electoral vote count during the 1824 US Presidential Election

But this is a contested election, so it will be more like the Contingent Election of 1825. The reason why this election occurred was that no one won a electoral vote majority then was there were 4 candidates running. This was before the 2 party system was established in the US. Andrew Jackson won a plurality of the votes and had the most electoral votes, but the House of Representatives gave the Presidency to John Quincy Adams, after he made a “corrupt bargain” with Henry Clay who also ran for President this year, and was the Speaker of the House during the contingent election. Henry Clay was rewarded for this effort by being named Secretary of State.

How the House of Representatives voted in the Contingent Election of 1825

If something like that were to happened in today’s US, I think the result would be chaos and political unrest on level unimaginable to most Americans. There is an even worst case scenario though. If one of more states submit a different set of electoral vote results. This was a scenario that a recent bipartisan group developed to game the upcoming election. Under this group’s opinion, the Congress fails to act to and the public waits for the military to decide.

A political cartoon of Andrew Jackson being harassed by the press during a caucus. He lost the 1825 contingent election is a corrupt bargain.

What happened then is anyone’s guess if multiple slates of electors are sent. Since the Democrats control the House of the Representatives they will like try to accept the Democratic slate of electors while rejecting the Republican slate. If they don’t do that then it is likely that both slates are rejected. The Senate does have in this too. With the current law being the new Congress decides and the control of the Senate in the balance it is hard to say what the outcome will be.

As of September 15, 2020, this is the current projection for the Senate races. Six of them are too close to project. Source

And if anything does happen like this during this year’s Electoral College meeting, Donald Trump will certainly be at the center of it. This Solar Eclipse is conjunct his natal Lunar Eclipse Moon! He has also just passed his nodal return. And the transit Mars, which trines the upcoming Solar Eclipse, is one the cups of the 9th House. Donald Trump will diffidently make some legal move to throw the results of the Electoral College in to question and cause a Contingent Election if it looks like he is losing the electoral vote!

In a contingent election the House of Representatives chooses the President. This is not a straight up or down vote which the Democrats would win since they are projected to still maintain control the US House of Representatives. Instead the delegation from each state gets one vote and the Republicans currently control the delegations of states with 26 of the 50. They are expected to increase their control to 27 in the next election. This means in any contingent election, Donald Trump would win reelection, while potentially losing the popular and electoral votes!

As of September 15, 2020, this is the current projection for the control of each state’s caucus in the House of Representatives. It may also be a preview the the 2021 contingent election for the US President. Source

For the Vice President, the situation is more complicated. The Senate elects the VP on a straight up or down vote. Since, the Senate make up after the next election is too close to call there is no sense in making a prediction here. If the Democrats do have control of the Senate during a contingent election, then Kamala Harris would be elected Vice President.

Then we would get the weirdest and most dysfunctional government since 1800 in this country as the President would be Donald Trump and the Vice President would be Kamala Harris. Amazing enough this would be actually fit very well with zodiacal releasing presidential predictions. Both Donald Trump and Kamala Harris look to be coming into different peak periods during the time this could happened.

So I am ending the series on the election here. If the Electoral College chaos plays out like I outlined, I may revisit it after at the end of December to look at any possible contingent election scenario. While this might seems unlikely for most political commentators, I think I have a duty to warn everyone based on the astrological research I conducted that this is definitely a possibility this year.