That brings up a good question. If a nominee for President dies after the convention but before the election what happens?

Vice president elect becomes president.

20th Amendment, Section 3

This actually almost came up once. There was an assassination attempt on FDR after his first election but before inauguration (the mayor of Chicago was killed in the same attempt -- lesson to future assassins, don't stand on unstable chairs while shooting at the president). If it had been successful his vice president (I forget who that was) would have been sworn in on inauguration day.

Hmm, that's between election and inauguration. The question was, between party candidate selection and election.

Ah, misread.

I imagine it would vary widely by state depending on existing laws for ballot formation.

If it happens early enough I imagine the party would reconvene a convention and decide on a new nominee the old fashioned way and then would work with individual states to try and get that new candidate on the ballot instead. As it moves later into the cycle I imagine this would be more and more difficult to accomplish as when Mel Carnahan died so close to the 2000 election in Missouri and went on to defeat John Ashcroft for governor. There simply was no time.

The constitution leaves it to the states to determine how they assign their electors. So I imagine 50 states would very quickly have to pass legislation dealing with it. And then there would be years of lawsuits by whomever didn't care for the results. Remember, we don't vote for president but for electors, and those electors in almost all states are allowed to vote for whomever they want and are not required to vote for the candidate to which they are pledged. So the simplest thing would be that if the dead candidate won electors those electors would vote for a different person when the electoral college convenes (probably whomever the national party has decreed as the replacement).

An almost historical precedent.

In the election of 1872 Horace Greeley was defeated by Ulysses Grant but did win 66 electoral votes. Greeley died before the Electoral College officially met (constitutionally this is before the actual election of the president) and so 63 of his electoral simply voted for other people. 3 electors held loyal and voted for Greeley but these votes were disqualified.

Thanks...that clears it up a tad:)

I suddenly have visions of a political action movie:

America's first black President (Don Cheadle) is assassinated by white supremacist weeks into his first term. The lead secret service agent (Denzel Washington - natch) assigned to the case discovers information that implicates that the female VP - now President (Helen Mirren) orchestrated the assassination. He reports his findings to the head of the Secret Service (Harvey Keitel) who, unbeknownst to the agent, is part of the conspiracy. Our hero now must fight for truth, justice, and the American way (not to mention his own life) with the help of a wacky aging Kennedy assassination conspiracy theorist (Harrison Ford) and his daughter (Liv Tyler), a DC cop.

OMG, what a great idea for our first LoT film. Post it in the LoT Film Commission Thead ASAP.


(Of course, we may have to change the casting a little ... which may effect how could a concept that is after all.)

With gratuitous evil Wilford Brimley.

No.... It wouldn't work. How would you incorporate bacon?

Isn't he dead?