Has there ever been a U.S. Presidential candidate who conceded, then later discovered he had the majority of the Electoral Votes?
What weight does the concession of a Presidential candidate carry? In theory, if a miracle happens, and Ohio flip-flops into the Kerry camp, does Kerry become President, or is it a case of ‘Nu-unh, you quit, no takebacks’?
I’m not holding out hope for a Kerry win at this point, I’m just curious as to the implications of concession.
Concession carried virtually no weight. I don’t know if your scenario has ever happened (it almost happened in 2000 – Gore had conceded, but withdrew it), but it’s merely an assurance to the victor that that the loser won’t fight on. Whoever ends up with the majority of electors is the winner – that’s the law, and nothing can change it.
A constitutional amendment can. 
I think Gore’s withdrawal of his concession in 2000 is the only time that’s ever happened. But concession is just a formality and has no legal meaning.
Cool, saved me having to start my own thread (the exact reason that I came into GQ just now) to ask the very same question.
I would think there are plenty of safeguards in place so a candidate does not concede without analyzing the data. It’s not a whim, it’s a big decision.
But again, as stated above, Gore did withdraw his concession. Are you asking what happens if the process gets started and they realize two days before inauguration they’re swearing in the wrong man?
No, I’d assume it’d be realized at least around the time the Electoral College votes…
Well speaking only for myself, the reason I was going to ask the question was, as soon as Kerry made his concession call, the news outlets started declaring “BUSH WINS”, as if the concession were the only thing that were standing in the way of the final result. The data hasn’t really changed, and Ohio is still technically too close to call.
The media held off until the concession solely to prevent cries of bias from the political hotheads. Just a PR move by them. As everyone has said, the concession means nothing legally.
That’s basically what I figured.
let’s just say the following happens:
ohio finishes the count.
the count turns out with kerry ahead by 2 votes. just to make the math easy, 2,222,22 kerry 2,222,20 bush.
would ohio give the 20 electorial votes to kerry? would it trigger an automatic recount?
if it triggers an automatic recount and kerry wins by 531 votes from “hanging” butterfly votes; would the republican side be the only side that could challenge?
According to CNN yesterday, Ohio has a mandatory recount law that triggers whenever the margin is less than half a percent, and also has laws which make it easy for anyone (well, anyone with lawyers) to request a recount regardless of margin.
It seems to me that an important element of a candidate’s “concession” is that by conceding defeat the candidate agrees that he or she isn’t going to push for recounts and related challenges in the race. In other words, by conceding, Kerry had called off the attack lawyers in Ohio and elswhere who might otherwise have challenged every vote.
That being said, the states will go on with their normal counting procedures (including automatic recounts if required under state law). If, for instance, someone Florida election headquarters realizes that, oops, 1 million votes for Kerry were accidently included in the Bush totals, the state would be obligated to seat the Kerry electors, not the Bush ones. This would, of course, turn the national election around. I suppose that if this were to happen, Kerry would have the choice of saying “nope, I conceded, so all of the electors shouldn’t vote for me,” or accepting the vote. You can speculate as to which he would choose.
I doubt that this has ever happened in Presidential races, but I am confident that it has happened in smaller races.
Concession is nothing more than the political equivalent of the loser going over to shake the winner’s hand in a sports contest. Or, to draw an even more direct comparison, a baseball batter with a 3-2 count watches a pitch go by, shrugs his shoulders and starts to walk toward the dugout.
If the umpire calls “ball 4” the batter still gets awarded first base.
Ha! Me too.
has the number of prov. votes in ohio been given? i keep reading more than 150,000 less than 250,000 .