6 Comments

Your footnote (1) makes me wonder - is there actually any requirement that electors vote for a living person? Could they "execute their pledge" by simply voting for the dead person? This was a very real prospect in the 1790's, when it would've taken a substantial time for news of someone's death to reach far-off state capitals. I can easily imagine an alternate timeline where the frail George Washington died in late 1792 and got posthumous electoral votes.

In 1872, we actually did get three electors voting for a dead man (Horace Greeley, who had died between Election Day and the electoral college meeting) - but fortunately he'd lost the election, so that didn't matter. Now that I look it up, I see that Congress officially rejected their votes... but I'm not sure why.

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If you KNOW the guy is dead, I think you can't vote for him because he's no longer a qualified candidate. But you're right that I don't actually see a black-letter law to that effect, and, even if being dead does disqualify a candidate, it could be argued that the pledge legally overrides one's ordinary obligations? I don't know. Figuring this out might be an interesting blog post in itself.

All things considered: argh. States should fix this, and, meanwhile, presidents-elect should focus really hard on not dying until Inauguration Day (at which time they have my permission to die).

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They don't even need to focus that long; after the Electoral College has voted, it's all clear per Section 3 of the 20th Amendment: "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."

But yeah - argh. The states should fix the remaining gap (between Election Day and the Electoral College) that they themselves created by binding the electors.

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Ah, of course, how could I have forgotten! Thanks.

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Ha! So many Heaney's present :D Doesn't your family have a past history as Deligates in bygone elections?

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My mom was a delegate to the 1992 Democratic National Convention in Madison Square Garden! (Then she was "escorted from the premises for her own safety" along with her delegation of pro-life Minnesota Democrats because the other Democrats really hated them and got physical about it.)

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