If a winning presidential candidate is later found to have been ineligible for election (let’s say that, for example, he had actually been born in China), is the VP next in line, or is the election voided?
I recently saw the (original) “Outer Limits” episode “100 Days of the Dragon,” which prompts my question.
(side note to others who are familiar with this episode)
I thought it was interesting the couple of times that actor Sidney Blackmer (playing the candidate/president-elect/president) in “candid” moments narrowed his eyes to show that he was “really” Chinese behind the faux American face. Don’t think that would fly on network TV today.
I’d be surprised that his opponents or the media hadn’t found out first, or that he’d managed to get past the Federal Election Commission.
But hey, this isn’t reality, it’s a retorical question.
On the other hand, I suppose the opposing party could make a good fuss for having new elections, because the winning slate had an ineligable canadate. My theory is that even if the VP was legal, he wouldn’t have gottent he position unless riding the coattails of the Commie/Alien backed Presidental Canadate.
Hm. Pres Doe gets discovered, forced out. Leaves VP in charge. Opposing party demands new election, based on ineligable canadate actually winning. Hm. I’d hazard a guess that the Supreme Court would order a new election. The FEC having messed up on their job.
Wouldn’t want to find out that the VP is actually the person we need to worry about, now do we?
The answer varies depending upon when the putative president was found out.
If the electoral votes hadn’t been counted, there is no law on the books, but most likely, the party of the faux president would nominate a new candidate and that person would get all the electoral votes. In 1872, Horace Greeley was the Democratic candidate for president, but he died after the election, but before the electoral votes were cast. Since the Democrats had lost, the electors voted for a whole bunch of people (including Greeley).
The 20th amendment does take care of the situation if the electoral votes have been cast and it turns out that there is no president on January 20, either by no one having a majority in the electoral college, death, or “failure to qualify”. In that case, the Vice President gets the job. If that doesn’t work out for some reason, then Congress meets and decides who gets the job. A new election could be called and an acting president chosen in such a situation.
Prior to Election Day- good question; presumably the VP candidate will take over for the Presidential candidate (hey, that’s half the reason they wanted him as Veep, right?) and will choose another person to be Veep.
Between Election Day and the vote of the Electoral College- given that people to not actually directly vote for the President, but instead vote for electors who go off to vote for president, there isn’t really any direct fraud. Maybe the party rallies behind the Veep as the new candidate, maybe they split up between the various candidates who ran in the primaries; either way, there’s nothing Constitutionally incorrect about the election.
After the vote of the Electoral College- legally, it would fall onto the shoulders of the VP-elect to be sworn in as President by the standard rules of succession. It’s doubtful that another election would be called (it’s never happened before, even given such dubious returns as in 1876) given the expense of time and money involved. Of course, the new President would likely be mired in scandal from the get-go, and hated with a passion by the opposition, but as that never stopped Bill Clinton, well…
So what if Fu Manchu or whoever the hell it is has actually managed to get himself sworn in? Could the Supremes or somebody just declare the whole thing null and void (“Oops”), or would the House have to impeach the guy and the Senate convict first?
I doubt that the Supreme Court would declare the President ineligible. That’s not the sort of thing it gets involved in.
I would think Congress would tell the President to beat it in some form. Probably a joint resolution at first and if that didn’t work, impeachment would follow.
However, can you impeach someone from an office that they constitutionally have no right to in the first place?
Let’s say that Mr. Pres is elected and sworn in, but afterward it’s discovered that he doesn’t qualify for the office because he was born inside a cargo container in international waters while his parents were illegally immigrating into the US. Since he was never eligable, he was never really the president. I’d say that they’d just swear in the VP and that would be that. If he tried to hold onto the office anyway, well, I suppose they could just arrest him for trespassing on government property
after the VP, how does the order of succession run? It goes through congressional offices, then through the cabinet IIRC, but does anyone know the actual game plan? If Richard III were secretary of housing, say, in what order would he poison the others to ascend to the POTUS throne?
According to The Order of Things, the succession order is:
[list=1]
[li]Vice President[/li][li]Speaker of the House[/li][li]President Pro Tempore of the Senate[/li][li]Secretary of State[/li][li]Secretary of the Treasury[/li][li]Secretary of Defense[/li][li]Attorney General[/li][li]Secretary of the Interior[/li][li]Secretary of Agriculture[/li][li]Secretary of Commerce[/li][li]Secretary of Labor[/li][li]Secretary of Health and Human Services[/li][li]Secretary of Housing and Urban Development[/li][li]Secretary of Transportation[/li][li]Secretary of Energy[/li][li]Secretary of Education[/li][li]Secretary of Veterans’ Affairs[/li][/list=1]
And at the bottom of the list:
279,999,997. Howard Stern
279,999,998. David Duke
279,999,999. The remains of the dead bird your cat brought to you after it’d been sitting in the afternoon sun for hours
280,000,000. Dan Quayle
Just to make this more complicated, suppose President Doe was a natural born American citizen, but was not qualified because he was only thirty-four at the time of his inauguration. Further suppose that this fact isn’t revealed until two years later, by which time he is thirty-six. The constitution says “neither shall any person be eligible to that office [the Presidency] who shall not have attained to the age of thirty-five years”. Obviously if his age had been revealed while he was younger than thirty-five, he would have lost his office. But since he has now passed thirty-five, he is eligible. So would he lose his office because of a no longer existing disqualification?
There has been something of a precedent for this type of situation. Henry Clay was first appointed to the US Senate when he was 29. (You have to be 30). He showed up, took the oath and served for a few months until the term ended.
Nobody bothered to ask Clay how old he was at the time, so nothing was done. It certainly didn’t hurt his Congressional career
Just a little food for thought, but the current President Pro Tempore of the Senate is Strom Thurmond. Let’s all hope that Bill Clinton, Al Gore, and Dennis Hastert never, ever, ever fly on the same airplane together.
