Most presidential election years progress as follows. There are lots of primaries, someone in each party wins the most and takes center stage at a big, noisy convention, they run in the general election, someone wins 270 electoral college votes and becomes president .
But 2024 is not a normal year for presidential elections. The two leading contenders for the major party nominations form the oldest candidate duo in American history: one is 81, the other 77. Age appears to be a major factor in the outgoing president’s fortunes, even if he has the kind of track record. this would re-elect most presidents. The other candidate is indicted and could be convicted of a crime and sent to prison during the election year. The two major parties are so closely divided that third-party candidates could tip a state’s electoral college votes, resulting in the third election of the 21st century where the winner of the national vote would not win the electoral college votes and thus the Presidency.
It’s no wonder many Americans are wondering, “What happens if the candidate is incapacitated, drops out, goes to jail, or no one reaches 270 in the college vote count?” electoral? » The answer is that the election could be decided by about 10,000 people that no one has ever heard of.
So, here’s who they are.
First, we must understand the importance of political parties. For example, much attention has been paid to the fact that officials in Colorado and Maine recently ruled that Trump was ineligible to run in their states’ Republican primary elections because of his role in the January 6 insurrection. If these decisions stand (a big if), it could have huge consequences in November, but no consequences for the nomination race. This is because political parties control the nomination process. They are covered by the First Amendment’s freedom of association and, absent processes that violate other civil rights (all-white primaries, for example), state political parties can select delegates to their conventions roughly as they wish. The Republican parties in Colorado and Maine can elect delegates at their state convention or through their state committee and send them to Milwaukee to vote for Trump at the Republican convention.
For example, in the event of the death or incapacity of a candidate, each state party will continue to elect delegates to its conventions through a series of congressional district caucuses, state conventions, and meetings of state committees which will take place most often in April, May. . and June. Delegates elected on behalf of someone who is no longer a candidate will no longer be engaged. Candidates who step into the breach hoping to take the place of the defeated candidate will find out who these delegates are and court them in any way they can. The result will be a convention whose outcome may not be known in advance. In other words, it will be the kind of no-holds-barred event that nominating conventions held between 1831 and 1968.
All of this is to say that the first 8,567 people you’ve never heard of are the ones who will be delegates to national conventions. These people may be teachers, union members, evangelical Christians, or right-to-life activists. What they all have in common is a certain degree of activism on behalf of their political party, even though they are generally unknown to the general public.
The dominant role of political parties also extends until after the convention. If something happens to the party’s nominee and that person cannot run in the general election, the 168 members of the Republican National Committee and the 426 members of the Democratic National Committee will meet in special session to choose a replacement candidate. (No, the nomination does not automatically extend to the vice presidential candidate listed on the ballot.) The procedures to be followed are written in the rules of the Republican Party and the Democratic Party Charter. Most of these 594 people are elected officials in their states and include all state party chairs and vice chairs as well as prominent people in their states and parties.
Each party has a system for selecting its national committee members and delegates to the national congress and methods for implementing the selection process. This is a large and complex undertaking, which is why it requires established political parties and millions of dollars to achieve. If we understand the centrality of the institutional party in the nomination process, we can also understand why a group like No Labels has such difficulty figuring out how to nominate a candidate that (supposedly) the public wants and who is not neither Trump nor Biden. Over the decades, both political parties have established a system with some legitimacy. A group that has decided to present a candidate without calling itself a political party and without building a base of elected leaders will have great difficulty asserting the legitimacy of its candidate.
And finally, what happens if, for some reason, the winner cannot take office after Election Day and before the final count in the Senate? The next critical group that no one knows about is the 535 members of the Electoral College. Most people are familiar with the Electoral College, and on election night we watch all the states announce who won and who lost their electors. But most people don’t realize that voters are real people who go to their state capital on the first Tuesday after the second Wednesday in December. They have an actual meeting where they sign a “Certificate of Verification” and a “Certificate of Votes” which are sent to Washington, D.C. to be read and counted by the President of the Senate (the sitting Vice President of the States -United States.) Some states (29) have laws requiring electors to vote for the winner of the election in that state. But others (21) do not.
Voters do not often vote differently from election results. But in the case where the candidate is no longer alive, incapacitated, or on his way to prison, some of these voters may think differently and try to vote for someone new. Electors are generally chosen by the state party for their loyalty to the party. In many cases, it is an honor – a sort of gold watch – awarded for long-term service to the party. They are not expected to think for themselves or negotiate, which is not to say that they would not do so in extraordinary circumstances.
And of course, it’s always possible that no candidate gets 270 votes in the Electoral College. If that happens, the election comes down to 435 people in the House of Representatives. Some people know who their representative is, but very few know who the other 434 representatives are. Once in the House – states have one vote each – determined by the majority vote of their delegation – a crazy system these days, especially when large states are much more populous than small states.
Once the Electoral College has met and made its decision, if the winner cannot take office, the 20th Amendment to the Constitution states: “If, at the time fixed for the beginning of the term of office of the President, the President-elect has died, the Vice-President-elect becomes President. »
There is a good chance that 2024 will go as planned. Trump and Biden will win the most primaries and will be their party’s nominees. And one of them will win the Electoral College votes and take control in January 2025. But it’s important to understand that there is no guarantee that 2024 will continue on its usual course. There could be surprises along the way that shock people and destabilize the system. The 8,567 delegates to the convention, the 594 members of the national party committees, the 535 members of the Electoral College and the 435 members of the House of Representatives total a little more than 10,000 people. We are in uncharted territory on several fronts, and we should expect strange developments along the way. Ten thousand people we don’t know could play a crucial role in deciding how to handle these surprises and determining who will occupy America’s most important office.
