Candidate Assassinations and Electoral Chaos?

[Marat]

What would happen if either a few hours before voting began in a U.S. Presidential election or shortly into the voting the candidates for President and Vice-President of a major political party were assassinated? No doubt the response of the country would be absolute chaos, since some votes would be cast by people who did not yet know the candidates were dead; other people would change their votes in unpredictable ways because they did not know how properly to vote in such a situation; and still others might stay at home and not vote, thinking the election could not be held. The electoral result obtained would no doubt be absurd, since it would be more a reflection of people's uncertainty over how to respond rather than of their real political choice.

 

Congress has limited power to regulate Presidential and Vice-Presidential elections by statute, and the relevant portion of the law which would govern such a crisis is in the Federal Code, 3 USC 1 (2), which says that if the voters of a state fail to choose electors on the date set for the Presidential election, each state legislature can set a subsequent date for choosing its electoral college representatives in any manner it wants. They would have to do this in time for the counting of the elector college ballots, which is set by law on the first Monday after the second Wednesday in December following the election date.

 

But here's where the problems begin. Could it be clearly determined that any given state had failed to elect its electoral college members because the voting had been rendered chaotic by the assassinations? Some votes would surely have been cast, so it could be argued that these votes represented a valid election, and that no body had a right to judge that the electing process had not occurred just because the vote tally was low or unexpected in its result.

 

Since each state legislature would be free if the election were held again to establish its own date and its own method of choosing electors, there might then be scattered voting on several different days, or even different methods among the states, with some having the legislature cast their electoral votes.

 

Could any retaking of the election be legitimate after it was obviously affected by the initial, failed electoral process, which might have implied that some candidate had more popularity and legitimacy than was imagined prior to the election?

[rktpro]

I can't tell about U.S but in my country

Retaking is considered.

If assassinated before voting-

The election should be postponed and the nomination should begin again from a new end.

If assassinated during or immediately after-

The Election Commission should consider a re-election because the previous election were executed taking a candidate in account who is now a history. This doesn't give a fair choice to the people. The candidate people choose at majority should form the government, his government should make laws for the country.

[lemur]

I'm sure they would just throw out whatever votes were already cast and plan new primaries, conventions, etc. It would be interesting if they had already won by a clear majority. I wonder if it could then be possible to swear-in whoever was next in line for the presidency, such as the speaker of the house, etc.

 

btw, Marat, do any of your posts not involve some form of killing?

Edited April 1, 2011 by lemur

[Marat]

The interesting problem with the candidate assasinations is that the laws governing the available options in such a situation are fairly restrictive and fail to allow sufficient flexibility to permit the government to achieve a just solution to such a crisis. Obviously the statute should be reformed to deal with such extraordinary circumstances, especially in light of the bitter conflicts over the Bush-Gore election. I can imagine that the party that won the majority of the votes in the actual election would try to argue that those results were legally the election, and that no one had authority to deny that. The current statute really only provides for the situation where the election cannot, for some reason, occur on the appointed day, but in the hypothetical situation I imagined the election would occur, but just in a freakish way.

 

It might well come down to how the Supreme Court would construe the word "election," with some justices arguing that such a chaotic procedure as occurred on election day could not really qualify as a genuine election, while others would insist that any organized voting on election day, even if grossly disturbed by surrounding circumstances, would fulfill the legal definition of an election so the result would have to stand.

 

*****

 

I hadn't noticed my apparent death obsession! I hope it is just because situations involving death create more pointed ethical dilemmas.

[imatfaal]

btw, Marat, do any of your posts not involve some form of killing?

 

*****

I hadn't noticed my apparent death obsession! I hope it is just because situations involving death create more pointed ethical dilemmas.

 

we could call this obsession the "death of marat"

 

 

 

Sorry. I'll get my coat and leave.

[jackson33]

If after the election and Senate ratification of those elections, both the President and VP die from whatever cause before inauguration, the line of succession would be followed.

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_presidential_line_of_succession

 

Here is how the experts explain the situation, but IMO if the elections had not been held, the elections could be voided, in total, the process again followed for the party involved...

 

 

President-elect succession

 

Scholars have noted that the national committees of the Democratic and Republican parties have adopted rules for selecting replacement candidates in the event of a nominee's death, either before or after the general election. If the apparent winner of the general election dies before the Electoral College votes in December the electors probably would endorse whatever new nominee their national party selects as a replacement. If the apparent winner dies between the College's December vote and its counting in Congress in January, the Twelfth Amendment stipulates that all electoral ballots cast shall be counted, presumably even those for a dead candidate. The U.S. House committee reporting on the proposed Twentieth Amendment said the "Congress would have 'no discretion' [and] 'would declare that the deceased candidate had received a majority of the votes.'"[6][/Quote]

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/President-elect_of_the_United_States

[lemur]

I hadn't noticed my apparent death obsession! I hope it is just because situations involving death create more pointed ethical dilemmas.

You're a pretty intense thinker and death/killing is a pretty intense topic. There's a lot of psychology regarding death-drive vs. libido, sex and death, mainly Freud and Bataille. Anyway, we could start a whole thread on it but the only reason I made a joke about it was because I get worn out engaging intense topics sometimes and it struck me as a funny comment. I'm not trying to accuse you of being murderous or something.

[Marat]

"Poor old Marat, they hunt you down,

The people are looking all over the town!"

 

For the benefit of those who remember the music to the play. No doubt my death fixation has something to do with Charlotte Corday being at the door ...

 

*****

 

The only objection I would have to Jackson's comment is that if the election which had been held immediately after or in the midst of the news about both candidates dying had been obviously absurd in its outcome, it would be difficult for the public to accept the legitimacy of the electoral vote cast by the electors selected by that election. Also, if the party which had lost both of its candidates were to appoint two new ones at a new convention, the electorate might feel cheated of their votes once again, since American voters tend to support individuals rather than parties, or are at least much less committed to parties rather than personalities than European voters are. Would people who voted for Obama have been satisfied with the substitution of Hilary Clinton in a subsequent convention after dual assassinations?

 

There was actually a case of a defeated Presidential candidate dying after the election but before the meeting of the members of the Electoral College, and that was Horace 'Go West Young Man!' Greeley. His electors then voted for a number of different people, including themselves in some cases.

[jackson33]

Marat, when the electorate votes for R or D, in their district their voting for an electorate to represent them. The two electorates representing the two Senators are determined by the individual States. None of those electorates are bound to vote for who the people had chose, though this has rarely happen and never determined an election. The electoral count in December, is done by the parties and in January, before the old Congress adjourns, they ratify/certify those party counts, technically then the Candidate become the Candidate Elect.

 

It's my opinion that until that certification, the election returns are "pending results" and would be void if somehow both the P & VP happen to die. I base this on another premise, that being if the President dies, the accepted pick by the Presidential Candidate (one persons choice), then would become the President, though the team had never been ratified. The link provides other scenarios, I disagree until ratification has been made official. After that certification and since the House would choose the President in the event of a tied electoral count anyway and his/her choice for VP, the ascension process would then be valid, not before....

[Marat]

But what if someone were to argue that under 3 USC 1(2), which contemplates the possibility that for some reason the Presidential election may not actually be held on the appointed day, there had been no genuine election on the day of the assassinations, given the chaotic response of the electorate. It seems that what we mean by an 'election' is not just any casting of some ballots by people under conditions of total confusion, but a more orderly process in which the public has a clear idea of what it is doing. It would then be up to the state legislatures to determine a suitable procedure to substitute for the non-election on the appointed day, and this would take place some time later but before the legally predetermined date for the meeting of the Electoral College. There would no doubt be an odd tension between assertions of state sovereignty and the interpretation of the federal statute by the federal courts, since the courts might order a legislature not to meet to develop a substitute election process, while the state legislature might want to insist on its 'sovereign' right to decide that the election was not a genuine one, since it does after all by the federal statute have the right to initiate the procedures leading to the substitute election. The statutory language fails to make clear who is entitled to decide whether the election has not really occurred on the appointed day. Since it is a federal statute that might seem to imply that the federal courts would ultimately have the right to decide this fact for bringing the statutory provision into operation, but since the statute assigns the power to determine a substitute election to the state legislatures that seems to suggest that the legislatures must also be entitled to judge whether to act on this.

[jackson33]

But what if someone were to argue that under 3 USC 1(2), which contemplates the possibility that for some reason the Presidential election may not actually be held on the appointed day, there had been no genuine election on the day of the assassinations, given the chaotic response of the electorate. It seems that what we mean by an 'election' is not just any casting of some ballots by people under conditions of total confusion, but a more orderly process in which the public has a clear idea of what it is doing. It would then be up to the state legislatures to determine a suitable procedure to substitute for the non-election on the appointed day, and this would take place some time later but before the legally predetermined date for the meeting of the Electoral College.[/Quote]

 

Marat; Look at it this way, until the elections are legally determined valid, the States are responsible for the procedure and in all cases political parties control State policy. Once the elections are determined valid by Congress, the States lose control over what happened during an election. Technically, States can contest in the Courts anything Congress does do and possibly turn the decisions of Congress and this could happen setting the needed precedence.

 

From the 20th A (1933);

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. If a President shall not have been chosen before the time fixed for the beginning of his term, or if the President elect shall have failed to qualify, then the Vice President elect shall act as President until a President shall have qualified; and the Congress may by law provide for the case wherein neither a President elect nor a Vice President elect shall have qualified, declaring who shall then act as President, or the manner in which one who is to act shall be selected, and such person shall act accordingly until a President or Vice President shall have qualified.[/Quote]

 

...f a candidate on the ticket dies or becomes incapacitated after the Electoral College vote in December but before the congressional certification of the results in January. During this period, does the country have a president-elect?...The most reasonable argument (bolstered by statutory history of the 20th Amendment, which deals with succession issues) would seem to be that the person who obtained the most electoral votes is the president-elect, even if Congress hasn't yet certified the votes.[/Quote]

 

http://2008election.procon.org/view.resource.php?resourceID=001566

 

The above is the argument, my first link was taking, basically when does a person become the President Elect and which I disagree. Remember IMO, that until the Congress ratifies, the VP's position has been established by one vote, that of the P. Since the P has passed or become disabled, it changes the status of the ticket, the people voted on and should not be furthered. Further more the parties, the electors, no longer at a physical meeting in Washington DC, but from the various States, validate only there own Candidate, which is a simple acknowledgement of the States results, not from the Congress, a National Forum.

[Marat]

I guess the focus of my worries is temporarily prior to yours in the process of determining the outcome of the election. By the federal law regulating Presidential and Vice-Presidential election, 3 USC 1 (2):

 

"Whenever any state has held an election for the purpose of choosing electors, and has failed to make a choice on the day provided by law, the electors may be appointed on a subsequent day in such a manner as the legislature of the state may direct."

 

In the case of both the Presidential and Vice-Presidential dying say an hour into the voting process, which I presume would result in some sort of chaotic transformation of the electoral result, with some people continuing to vote, some changing their votes, and others deciding not to vote, I suppose some state legislatures would want to say that the state had in fact "failed to make a choice [of electors] on the day provided by law," because the 'choice' actually made by the voters was too disordered by circumstances to count as a genuine 'choice' in the sense contemplated by the statutory language.

 

But would that all be left up to the assessment of each individual state? "The electors may be appointed on a subsequent day in such a manner as the legislature of the state may direct" seems to imply that the determination is entirely up to each state, perhaps not only as to the manner in which a subsequent selection of the electors would occur but also as to whether the electors really did need to be chosen on a subsequent day since the initial 'choice' was no choice at all. "May" seems to give the states a lot of leeway.

 

But since some states would want to regard the day's results as valid while others would want to regard them as invalid, and different states might develop different procedures for the subtitute selection of electors (state legislatures selecting them or new popular elections doing so), the degree of political conflict and loss of public confidence in the probity of the result could be unacceptably high.

 

The statute should really clarify who gets to decide that the choice has not in fact been made on the appointed day. Is that entirely within the state legislature's discretionary assessment or could a court resolve the factual dispute?

[jackson33]

"Whenever any state has held an election for the purpose of choosing electors, and has failed to make a choice on the day provided by law, the electors may be appointed on a subsequent day in such a manner as the legislature of the state may direct."[/Quote]

 

http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/United_States_Code/Title_3/Chapter_1

 

Marat, I'm guessing you feel, the deaths of both the P/VP, having been chose by the respective National Party Convention, somehow validates the various States Legislatures (all) to then make another choice up to the time required by law, to submit electoral results in December. While this is more or less a guide line, NO State can be mandated to follow any of it, nor likely would either major Political Party accept that approach. Again it's my opinion/interpretation, only from the time the Congress has certified the Election Results, would it even be possible for the succession process could be used, even though the ending session, does elect the new Speaker (John Boehner chose Nov. 6th, 2010) yet the New Congress certifies the General Election returns. For a practical example, Polosi, chose Speaker before the Obama/Biden Election could not have been appointed President or IMO VP, until after the new Congress confirmed the election results, in 2008/9.

 

Is that entirely within the state legislature's discretionary assessment or could a court resolve the factual dispute? [/Quote]

 

Since there is no natural precedence (at this level), It would be disingenuous to suggest the Courts wouldn't be used. Circumstances would dictate any complaints and/or resolutions such as in Florida 2000 and would be placed on fast track to SCOTUS. Keep in mind, the Executive also could impose a "state of emergency", to allow any needed time to resolve and act... I would think shortening the time between ALL National Elections, nearly eliminating the "Lame Duck Session" for many reasons, would be best.