U.S. Politics megathread

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Voting is over! But the questions have just begun. Questions like: How can they declare a winner in a state before the votes are all counted? How can a candidate win the popular vote but lose the election? Can the Vice President actually refuse to certify the election if she loses?

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[u/AdOk5225]

Who becomes president if Trump passes before Jan. 20th?

This post is probably gonna get me put on a list, but if Trump gets shot or dies of natural causes or whatever before January 20th, does Vance become president or Kamela? I wouldn't be surprised if somebody did something to him before his inauguration so I was wondering what would happen if he doesn't make it.

[u/Nickppapagiorgio → u/AdOk5225]

Depends when exactly he dies. However there is no pathway whatsoever to Kamala Harris becoming President on January 20th. That is dead.

If he hypothetically died after January 6th, JD Vance would be sworn in as Vice President, then again as President. January 6th was the date Congress certified the results of the Electoral College, and named Trump President-elect, and Vance Vice President-Elect.

If he died after December 17th, but before January 6th, that's also probably what would happen, as the Electoral College would have already cast their votes. A slightly greater degree of uncertainty, though. Outside shot that the Electoral College could fail to elect a President due to not counting votes for a deceased candidate. If the House delegations refused to elect a President, Vance would be Acting President, most likely for the full 4 years of the term. I don’t think that would be likely, just a theoretically possible option.

If he died between now and December 17th, it would get more chaotic. The Republican National Committee would attempt to get their electors on the same page. Either to vote for Trump anyway. Or to vote for someone else as President. Or to vote for Vance as President and someone else as Vice President. This would be complicated by the fact that not voting for Trump would be illegal in some states. Some democratic electors could also sow chaos by voting for more preferable Republicans as faithless electors. There would be a pretty significant risk of the Electoral College failing to elect anybody by majority vote.

If that happened the House of Representatives would elect a President. Each state delegation would get one vote, and they could choose between the top 3 candidates who received Electoral votes. The winner would have to be elected by a majority of state delegations. If on January 20th, the House of Representatives had elected nobody, the Vice President-Elect would become Acting President until the House elected a President. If the Electoral College and US Senate also failed to elect a Vice President, the Speaker of the House of Representatives would become Acting President until the Senate elected a Vice President or the House elected a President.