Do all the mail in votes and early voting become obsolete if Biden is incapacitated before the election? What if he actually passes away? Can the demmies put forth another candidate then re-issue ballots? In light of watching that clip of him making that speach, mumbling and out of breath, he doesn't look good.
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You are not voting for a candidate. You are voting for electors who then vote for the candidate in the Electoral College.
Wow that IS a good question. My bet is the democrats would sue to say the vote was for the party and not the candidate but I don’t know since we’ve never had a party nominate a geriatric dementia riddled pervert.
"geriatric dementia riddled pervert" Nice. I'm not a lawyer, so just asking.
Thank you. That’s how I see him, anyway. I haven’t a clue as to what the argument would be. Probably just not count the vote. But they always argue so that would be my guess as to what they would go with.
Good question! I think they would allow the existing ballots because it helps the Democrats, but Michigan just recalled a bunch of ballots because the state made an error on them that could have been used to block the ballots if the voters voted for Pres. Trump.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2020/05/16/what-else-happens-if-us-presidential-candidate-withdraws-or-dies-before-election-is-over-part-2/
Joshua Tucker: What happens if the party’s nominee dies or withdraws after having been officially nominated but before the November election?
Richard Pildes: This puts the ball in the hands of the “national political parties,” which for this purpose means the legal entities known as the Democratic and Republican national committees.
The Democratic National Committee has a clear rule for this situation. The 447 members of the Democratic National Committee, the entity that formally hosts the convention, would choose the new nominee. The DNC chair, currently Tom Perez, is required to consult with the Democratic leadership in Congress and with the Democratic Governors Association. After the consultation, the chair provides a report to the DNC members, who then make the choice.
The Republican National Committee’s rules are similar. The RNC has 168 members — three from each state, plus three from six territories. The RNC’s rules provide that the three members from each state cast the same number of votes that their state or territory is entitled to at the convention. So Alaska’s three members get to cast a total of 28 votes, for example. If those three members disagree, they each get to cast one-third of those votes.
Second, the parties would now have to replace the name of their dead candidate on each state’s ballot with that of the new candidate. Depending on when this happens, that might not be simple. Different states have different deadlines for when the parties must certify their candidates for the ballot. In 2016, most were in August and September. If states do not have laws that permit changing the candidate’s name after that date, courts would probably have to be brought in. It’s hard to imagine courts refusing to permit one of the two major parties to replace a deceased candidate’s name with that of a validly chosen replacement.
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J.T.: What happens if a party’s nominee dies or withdraws after having accumulated enough delegates for the nomination but before the convention meets?
R.P.: The Democratic National Committee’s rules permit delegates to vote their conscience, even if their states’ voters selected a particular candidate. So Democratic convention delegates would be free to vote for whomever they might prefer. They are not required to vote for the candidate who has earned the second-most delegates, nor would they be required to vote for the person the presumptive nominee identified as the vice-presidential choice, if that had already been announced. This year, the superdelegates — DNC members and elected officials who officially attend the convention without representing a candidate — cannot vote in the first round, but they can beginning in the second round. Such an event would, of course, involve intense intraparty discussions, arguments, efforts to build coalitions and the like. But remember, the delegates have been carefully chosen by the various primary candidates to be sure to support those candidates. So if Biden were out, the Biden delegates would be likely to support whomever the Biden forces in the Democratic Party coalesced behind.
On the Republican side, it’s a bit more complicated. For a candidate’s name to be put into nomination at all, eight state delegations must agree to do so. If a candidate has died, he might not get past that first hurdle. RNC rules, unlike the DNC rules, do require delegates to vote for the candidate selected by their state’s primary (or other mechanism, such as a state convention). I would imagine the RNC would adopt a rule change, or creatively interpret its own rules, to address the situation.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2020/05/16/what-happens-if-us-presidential-candidate-withdraws-or-dies-before-election-is-over-part-1/
J.T.: What if the winner of the November election dies or withdraws before the electoral college meets in December?
R.P.: This is the messiest situation and could unleash a lot of different maneuvers and disputes.
The issue is how an elector should or can cast their vote if the candidate their state has voted for dies after the election.
The initial questions are both constitutional and state-law based. Indeed, in cases argued on Wednesday, May 13, before the Supreme Court, Chiafalo v. Washington and Colorado Department of State v. Baca, the court will decide whether it is constitutional for states to “bind” their electors to vote for the candidate who won the popular vote in that state.
If the court holds that states can constitutionally bind their electors, then in a state that has done so, those laws do not specify whether an elector must still vote for a now-dead candidate and, if not, who they must or can vote for instead. When these laws were written, state legislatures were not thinking about this remote possibility. This is a glitch: States that bind electors should amend these laws to specify what an elector can or must do in this circumstance.
As a practical matter, if the parties have been vigilant, the electors should be extremely loyal to their political party. Even if the electors are formally bound by state law to vote for the dead candidate, I would expect them to cast their presidential vote for the vice-presidential nominee of that party.
But I can conjure up more complex scenarios. Remember, Congress ultimately “counts” the electors’ votes. Say Candidate A wins in State X, and then dies — but State X’s legislature strongly opposes Candidate A’s vice-presidential choice. One could imagine that state legislature appointing a new slate of electors committed to voting for a different candidate for president. It is unclear if states can constitutionally do this. We also don’t know if courts would get involved to decide that issue. Moreover, since Congress ultimately decides which electors’ votes to count, Congress might become a central player and decide what counts as a valid electoral vote in the various circumstances this scenario might unleash.
Thank you so much!
shhhh , you are giving away DNC-CCP secrets.