Q What would happen if either a presidential or vice presidential candidate were to die between now and the election? I remember the upheaval after the plane crash killed Paul Wellstone, and that was just for a senator.
A The Constitution basically is quiet on the subject. This has revealed itself to be a vulnerability, especially after 9/11 and the terrorist attacks that aimed to disrupt Spain's elections in 2004.
Rep. Brad Sherman (D-Calif.), who chairs the House Subcommittee on Terrorism and has researched the issue since 2004, offered the following answer to the question. [Editor's note: Remember that, in a presidential election, voters actually are voting for electors who will convene later to cast their votes for the president and vice president.] If a presidential candidate dies after the convention, the assumption is that the vice president would take his or her place. However, nothing obligates those electors to follow that assumption.
Technically, the electors are pledged to vote for their party's vice presidential candidate for vice president, not president. If a few electors honored their technical pledge, rather than take the expected action, the party that prevailed in the election would lose in the electoral college and might lose the presidency.
If both the presidential and vice presidential nominees of the party were to die before the election, voters wouldn't know who would become the president if that party's electors won the November election.
Campaign season is the time when our national leaders are particularly susceptible to assassination. John F. Kennedy was beginning to campaign for reelection as he was shot during a parade in Dallas; Robert Kennedy was assassinated while campaigning in Los Angeles.
Rep. Sherman and Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) have been urging both parties to take two actions at their presidential nominating conventions:
Name first and second back-ups to their vice presidential candidates in case either or both their presidential or vice presidential nominees die before taking office.
Require their electors to pledge to vote for the party's vice presidential nominee for president if its presidential nominee is deceased and to vote for the appropriate backup for president or vice president if those higher in the succession chain are no longer available.
In addition, Congress needs to address what would happen should both the president-elect and vice president-elect die after the Electoral College meets (early December) but before the results are certified by Congress (early January). Using its constitutional powers, Congress should require that, in such a circumstance, the Electoral College would reconvene before the results are certified by Congress.
This would allow the electors to elect the backup and second backup as president-elect and vice president-elect.
These aren't macabre or boring technical issues, according to Sherman. "We should safeguard our institutions in our quadrennial period of heightened vulnerability."
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