When no vice presidential candidate wins a majority of Electoral College votes, the Senate chooses the vice president from the top two finishers. This procedure, established by the 12th Amendment in 1804, requires a simple majority vote (51 senators if all 100 vote). Each senator gets one vote, unlike the House''s state-by-state system for picking the president. The Senate has used this power once: in 1837, Virginia''s 23 electors refused to vote for Martin Van Buren''s running mate Richard Johnson because Johnson lived openly with an enslaved woman he claimed as his common-law wife. Without those votes, Johnson fell one short of the 148-vote majority needed. The Senate voted 33-16 to elect Johnson anyway on February 8, 1837. The process runs parallel to the House''s presidential selection—if the House deadlocks and picks no president by Inauguration Day, the Senate''s VP choice becomes acting president under the 20th Amendment. This creates a strange scenario where senators might elevate their pick to the presidency by refusing to confirm the House''s choice, though this has never happened.