Question Details	Asked By	Asked On
Forgot my government 101	Bishop_Chuck	10/14/04
Ok, the early voting has started today. Now, what happens, if one of the canidates would die ( not that I want any of them to) Does the VP canidate automaticly become the Presidential canidate, or does the party have to re-nominate someone?
Clarification/Follow-up by tomder55 on 10/15/04 7:17 am: yes ;the party would have to get a new candidate.the question is in the timing .could a party field a viable replacement candidate in the days or weeks prior to the election date ? I have been looking into the issue further this morning . The constitution doesn't mandate a Nov. election.[it is mandated by Federal Law].But if it did happen how could the States manage the election ;printing of new ballots etc. if the day of the election is unchanged? We came close to these scenarios a couple of times. Robert Kennedy was killed after almost assuredly securing the Dem. nomination. I am not sure ,but I think his delegates were freed to vote for the candidate of their choice. And of course Harrison got ill during his swearing in ceremony and died a few months later. But the succession of the VP had already been established by precident. Also look at the fiasco in N.J. over the Lautenberg selection to Senate .Imagine that on a national scale ! As it is ;with all the bottom feeders circulating around the polling places this year I expect it will take a month of court challenges to determine a winner this time around.
Answered By		Answered On
tomder55		10/15/04
There is no Federal standard to deal with this nightmare scenario.There are a hodge-podge of State statutes but it is a troubling scenario. No ,the VP does not become the candidate.The problem is that election day is set in stone by the Constitution. Perhaps a new amendment is needed to address this. If a winning candidate dies after the election but before the Electoral College meets, some state laws would apparently require electors to vote for him (with his running mate taking office in January); but Congress, might refuse to count these votes. After losing to Ulysses Grant in November 1872, presidential candidate Horace Greeley died, but some electors from states that he carried nevertheless voted for him; Congress refused to treat these votes as valid. Another issue : Electors are not committed to vote as the State voted .They have been called 'faithless Electors' and rarely do they not vote as instructed to do. "Since the founding of the Electoral College, there have been 156 faithless Electors. 71 of these votes were changed because the original candidate died before the day on which the Electoral College cast their votes. Three of the votes were not cast at all as three Electors chose to abstain from casting their Electoral vote for any candidate. The other 82 Electoral votes were changed on the personal initiative of the Elector. Sometimes Electors change their votes in large groups, such as when 23 Virginia Electors acted together in 1836. Many times, however, these Electors stood alone in their decision." In 2000 one elector;Barbara Lett-Simmons (Democrat, District of Columbia)abstained in protest because of lack of representation in Congress for the District of Columbia. (http://www.fairvote.org/e_college/faithless.htm)

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