Following up on this post, my colleague Karl Manheim sends along these thoughts:

There are 3 potential problems with the Washington Times’ nightmare scenario following a 269-269 tie in the electoral vote.
1. In the event no candidate has a majority of electoral votes, the President is selected by the House on Jan. 6 (3 USC s 15) , but with each state getting a single vote (Art. II, s 1, P 3; and 12th Amd) – “in choosing the president, the votes shall be taken by states, the representation from each state having one vote”). Even with a strongly Democratic house, will they control 26 state delegations?
2. The Vice President is selected by the new Senate, which takes office on Jan. 3 (20th Amd). Unlikely to be a tie in the Senate then.
3. Nancy Pelosi may not be next in line to act as President (even assuming she is reelected). While 3 USC s 19 does list the Speaker of the House as next in line after the VP, the succession statute applies to all vacancies in the office of President. At least to the extent it includes death or disability, only an “officer of the Untied States” is eligible to serve (Art. II, s 1, P 6), and members of Congress are not “officers” (see Art. II, s 4 – describing impeachment of all civil officers (members of congress cannot be impeached, hence not “officers of the United States”)). Although the 20th Amendment broadens the category of who can serve “if a President shall not have been chosen before the time fixed for the beginning of his term” (20th Amd. s 3) to include any “person” (not just officers), its inclusion in a statute that is otherwise unconstitutional may be problematic.

UPDATE: A reader points me here to projections showing a 27-21-2 split on House delegations in favor of Democrats projected to the next election. The reader says: “In the very unlikely event of an EC tie, it seems almost unthinkable that the Democrats will not control the House by a large margin.”