now that the election is over and the winner decided, i feel i can ask this question without fear of a visit from the SS
in the case of an sitting president running for reelection, what happens if the incumbent dies on the day before the election?
to use this election as an example: on November 1st, Air Force One crashes and GW dies as a result. does the general election for president proceed as scheduled? does the challenger simply win by proxy? obviously, the VP takes over as president at that time - does the VP automatically enter the race as the incumbent candidate (unlikely)?
there has been at least one (that i know of - likely more) instance of a state/local-level election being won by a recently-deceased candidate. what happens, in the above example, if GW, having died the day before, wins the election anyway? does the VP, having already assumed the role of president, automatically become the president-elect for the next term?
I can’t speak for the Presidential Election, but in 2002, the Senator from Minnesota, Paul Wellstone, died in a plane crash two weeks before the election. The State Democatic committee moved quickly to put Fritz Mondale on the ballot as a replacement. He lost (a shame) but to fill the seat until the innauguration, our Governor appointed someone to fill the seat.
It would seem logical that Cheney would continue to be President until the Innauguration, and continue as president in the next term since we vote for electors of both the President and Vice President. He would be elected Vice President, but since the President is dead, he becomes the President by default.
Elections are controlled by state law. So what happens on the ballot when a candidate dies is up to the state. In most (if not all) states, I would guess that the death of a candidate the day before the election would not allow for a change on the ballot. (So far as I know, there are no “automatic” replacements, such as moving a sitting vice president into the president’s position).
After the balloting is over, it is again up to state law what to do with the results. My guess is that in most cases, the popular vote would still be applied to choose the electors as if no one had died.
Now the question is what happens at the electoral college. I seem to recall that there was a case in which a Democratic presidential challenger died between the popular vote and the electoral college. In that case, the Democratic electors were released to vote for whomever they wished. It’s possible that the party leadership can get together and propose a replacement, but I don’t think the electors would be bound to vote for such a replacement.
Contrary to near-universal opinion, nobody voted for Kerry or Bush yesterday.
They voted for between three and fifty-odd people, totalling 538 nationwide, who will sometime in December cast their votes for President, and barring peculiar events intervening the majority of them will re-elect Mr. Bush.
If Mr. Bush should die between today and that date, it’s to be presumed that that majority would elect Mr. Cheney, who would already be serving out the last month of Mr. Bush’s term.
Likewise if a majority of people pledged to Mr. Kerry had been chosen, and he would have died prior to their electing him, Mr. Edwards would most likely receive their votes.
They do have the freedom to choose as they wish – as was the case when Horatio Greeley lost to Gen. Grant and then died between the popular election and the casting of electoral votes. However, in point of practice, they would be expected to vote for the surviving party nominee – the man chosen by their party to become President if they win the election and the President should die during his term. Presumably they would attempt to arrive at a consensus figure for whom to cast their VP votes.
if the projected winner dies before the electorial college meets, the electorial college can vote for whomever they want. they could possibly elect someone who wasn’t running for the office.
When President Taft and VP Sherman ran for reelection in 1912, Sherman died about a week before the election. Taft didn’t announce a replacement, possibly too late. Didn’t matter much, the team got only 8 electoral votes.
