One interesting point is that if no candidate has a majority of the electoral votes for President, the House chooses among the top 3 candidates (voting by state); while if no candidate has a majority of the electoral votes for Vice President, the Senate chooses between the top 2 candidates. So while the House might have chosen between Nixon, Humphrey, and Wallace; the Senate would choose between Agnew and Muskie.
Why is this, do you know? I've always wondered, because it seemed kind of weird.
I really don't know for sure. If I were to hazard a guess, I would say it's because the House might fail to select a President, since it's possible that none of the three candidates will get a majority in the House vote. However, even if the House repeatedly fails to select a President, the Senate will have to select a Vice President who will then become acting President until the House can break the deadlock. It's not possible for the Senate to be deadlocked on the selection of a VP.
However, what if two or more candidates tie for third or second? Does the House or Senate then select from all of them? I would assume they would, but that would kind of defeat the purpose of the scenario I mentioned above, if two candidates tied for third.
