Trump has Covid-19. People have already started voting.
- What happens if Trump dies before election day?
- IF Trump wins the election, what happens if he dies after election day but before inaguration day?
Cecil (anyone remember him?) had a column on this way back in 1980.
That’s the easy one. If Trump wins then presumably Pence won also. As Vice President, he would become President when Trump died. And then as the Vice President elect he would become President to carry out Trump’s second term on Inauguration Day.
Thanks, flurb. So I guess the question is what if he dies before election day? Can people vote for a dead guy?
Remember, you’re not actually voting for president. You’re voting for someone to be a member of the Electoral College to vote for the guy you select on the ballot.
That would be complicated by the fact that a lot of people have presumably already voted for Trump via mail-in ballots. So if Trump died and the RNC named Pence as the replacement candidate, there would be a split with some Republican votes going to the now deceased Trump and some to the now incumbent Pence. We could end up with a situation where Biden got more votes than either Republican but the Republican total was higher than Biden’s. (We’d also have some confusion with Pence receiving votes both for President and Vice President.)
I must presume that even in states with “bound” electors, death of the candidate would release them. So for the sake of avoiding disorder they could say “oh, we’ll count it all for Pence” and let the incoming team deal with the VP vacancy, or have Pence and the RNC nominate a new VP before the EC and have that candidate elected there. The issue ISTM would be strictly political, not legal, as in would the the Trump-aligned inner circle seek to have someone more strictly Trumpian take over instead of Pence.
I believe most states attach a specific candidate to each elector. So you can’t vote for an elector based on his promise to vote for a Republican.
Let’s use Georgia as an example. We could end up with a situation where the popular vote for Biden’s electors is 1,800,000 votes, the popular vote for Pence’s electors (who is now President) is 1,500,000 votes, and the early mail-in votes for Trump’s electors (cast before he died) is 500,000 votes. So which set of electors won? Biden’s electors got the most votes in what unexpectedly became a three way race. But I think everyone would agree that those voters who chose Trump’s electors would have wanted their electors to be vote for Pence.
You’re incorrectly assuming that Georgia would change their ballots between now and election day.
You don’t think Georgia would like to avoid the situation of people showing up at the polls on Election Day and being told to choose between voting for Joe Biden and voting for somebody who is dead?
We already know the answer to that. Kevin Van Ausdal dropped out of the race for Georgia’s 14th congressional district in early September. Georgia election law does not allow the ballot to be changed 60 days prior to the election.
I thought I posted a response to this. It’s up to the states which have traditionally allowed the deceased candidate’s party to select a substitute. I believe that once the ballots are printed (or it’s to late to reprint) votes for the deceased candidate will apply to the substitute.
At this point, it’s functionally impossible to get Trump’s name off the ballot. So the election would proceed with him on the ballot, and any state where he won would elect his slate of electoral college electors.
This is where it gets interesting. Earlier this year, the Supreme Court ruled in Chiafalo v. Washington that state statutes the bind electors to vote for their state’s candidate are Constitutional. While I would presume that each state’s statutes provide for the death of the candidate, I bet there are a lot of lawyers right now combing through those laws.
But presuming that’s not an issue and Trump’s electors are all free to vote for another candidate, there’s no way to require them to vote for an agreed-upon replacement for Trump. The RNC could certainly try to strong arm them, but there’s no way to force them. So let’s say that Trump once again eeks out a EC victory, but enough of his electors refuse to go along with the RNC-anointed replacement candidate so that nobody gets 270 EC votes. Then it goes to the House of Representatives to decide the matter, where states will vote as delegations for President. Right now Republicans control a narrow majority of delegations, but that could change depending on the outcome of the election.
Just when you thought this thing couldn’t get to be any more of a shit show. . .
There are three times that are significant. Nov. 3, Dec. 14 when the EC votes and Jan. 6 when the EVs are counted. As noted above you do not actually vote for pres and vp but for electors. Were he to die before Nov. 3, the RNC would choose new candidates (almost surely Pence and likely Nikki Haley) and ask the electors to respect that choice. Good party hacks they almost all are, then would respect that choice. Before Dec. 14, it would likely be the same. After that date the votes are cast in stone and cannot be changed. I imagine that Trump would be chosen and, come Jan. 20, President Pence would continue.
This of course is under the assumption that Trump won the election. If not, it is all moot. Pence would be president and yield to Biden.
Why not? Exactly the same thing happened in Missouri happened 20 years ago. Mel Carnahan, the governor and candidate for Senate, was killed in a plane crash three weeks before the election. Absentee voting was already underway and by Missouri law, it was too late to change the ballots, so voters were told to choose between someone who was alive, and someone who was dead.
The dead guy won by 49,000 votes. The new governor appointed Carnahan’s wife to fill the seat until the 2002 election.
So what happens if a candidate dies between Jan 6 and Jan 20? Can the Electoral College decide to reconvene and call for a do-over? (To clarify and emphasize: I’m not referring to a mere recount of already-cast ballots; can there be a total do-over of the voting?)
[quote=“Keeve, post:16, topic:922037”]
So what happens if a candidate dies between Jan 6 and Jan 20? Can the Electoral College decide to reconvene and call for a do-over? (To clarify and emphasize: I’m not referring to a mere recount of already-cast ballots; can there be a total do-over of the voting?)
[/quote]Twentieth Amendment, Section 3: “If, at the time fixed for the beginning of the term of the President, the President-elect shall have died, the Vice President-elect shall become President.”
Earlier thread:
Here’s another constitutional question. If Pence becomes acting president can he give Trump a blanket pardon?
As a then-Missourian who voted for the dead guy, I can assure you he was better for Missouri and the USA even dead than the other guy was while alive.