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© Associated Press
President Donald Trump and his wife, Melania, are infected with the coronavirus and have mild symptoms, but were hospitalized just 17 hours after the news was announced. Because of his age, he is in danger; Earlier this week, he was in contact with his opponent Joe Biden, who is not infected but is four years older than him and this is also a significant risk. Inevitably, the question arises: what will happen to the American election if one or both candidates die before the vote? What if this happens in the months after, before taking office on January 20?
In such a crisis, the first is the situation in which the president may not be able to fulfill his functions.
Under the 25th Amendment to the Constitution, the president can ask his alternate (in this case, Mike Pence) to take office. This happened when the president had to undergo a special medical procedure. It doesn’t mean Pence will become president: Trump is still in office and his deputy is only acting, as long as the president is well enough to announce in writing that he is fully regaining his powers.
If the president is alive but cannot communicate, power passes to the vice president. Pence will not be president again, but will only act until the reinstatement of the incumbent. This part of the 25th Amendment has never been used. It is triggered by a decision of the vice president and a majority (at least 8) of 15 specific ministers. If in 4 days this group does not declare the president incompetent again, the powers are returned in full to the president.
But if there is a second such declaration, the Senate and House of Representatives must decide within 21 days by the votes of at least two-thirds of their members that the president cannot take office and his alternate will serve until the end. of his mandate.
If Pence is also incapable, the Constitution transfers power to the Speaker of the House of Commons. In this case, it’s Nancy Pelosi from the Democratic Party.
What follows is more complicated: what happens if the president dies after the elections and before January 20, when his new term begins, or if this happens during this period with the newly elected president?
This territory is quite confusing, even because some voters have already cast their ballots by mail. The United States will automatically have a president and that is the vice precedent, but who will be sworn in on January 20? This is resolved in discussions and possibly battles at the state, party, electoral and judicial levels.
In the United States, there is one vote for a particular candidate, and it would be undemocratic to pass the results on to the vice presidential candidate; there are Republicans who don’t like Pence, as well as those who would vote for Pence if he were a presidential candidate. Plus, Pence didn’t go through the primary election battle – it’s just Trump’s personal choice.
The most complicated remains: if Biden also falls seriously ill.
The date of the vote cannot be moved: it is fixed by law from 1845 and this year falls on November 3. Americans have always voted on the Tuesday after the first Monday in November, whether there is a war or a serious economic crisis. Changing this requires the approval of both houses of parliament, and in this case there is no time for such action.
In short, the solution is one: both Republicans and Democrats will have to choose other candidates, explains the authoritative statistics site Five Thirty Eight. Vice-presidential candidate Mike Pence would be the obvious choice for Republicans, but then a replacement would have to be chosen. Democrats could support another candidate or someone who did not run in the primary, like New York Governor Andrew Cuomo. But such a crisis would likely force them to elect Vice President Kamala Harris. In both parties, the leadership will be under pressure to at least listen to candidates running in the primaries and having their own arguments for nomination.
And then the situation remains complicated in the electoral college. It will have to be decided whether its 538 members, who elect the president in December based on popular vote in their own state, will consider votes already cast by a deceased or incompetent candidate as votes for the one who was replaced by a party decision.
Such a development would be unprecedented. So far, no candidate has died since the two-party conventions and before the elections. (Although in 1982, the liberal Republican candidate Horace Greeley died after the vote and before the Electoral College was convened.)
In 1972, Missouri Senator Thomas Eagleton (George McGovern’s vice president) withdrew from the race and the National Committee of Democrats elected another candidate. But it is unlikely that the procedure will be the same in the event of the death of any of the candidates, because such an event does not imply that the party leadership has time to prepare and consider other options.
However, the death of a vice presidential candidate was among Republicans: in 1912, then-Vice President James Sherman died on October 30, days before the vote. Republicans did not have time to nominate William Taft, who lost to Woodrow Wilson, a vice.
If such a tragedy occurs near Election Day, there will be another difficulty: Ballots will need to be changed after the certification deadline, which is early October. This will lead to more problems: how will ballots be provided to soldiers abroad or how ballots will be corrected for people who voted by mail. It will also be questionable whether some of those who have already voted will not want to change their vote when the candidate changes. And how will they do it?
So the comment from many analysts so far is: “Let’s hope the country has exhausted its bad luck by 2020.”
