What happens if either of the two likely presidential nominees were to die from COVID-19?
President Donald Trump was the oldest person to ever be inaugurated as the U.S. president at age 70. Former Vice President Joe Biden would far surpass that if he were to be elected president and inaugurated in January 2021, when he would be 78 years old.
The age of these two presidential candidates prompted this question from Vermont Public Radio listener Jo Ann Duprey of Springfield, Vermont:
What happens if Joe Biden is incapacitated or dies either from COVID-19 or any number of other problems?
As VPR’s senior political reporter Bob Kinzel explains, the answer lies somewhere between definite and not-so-definite.
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What if Joe Biden dies before the Democratic National Convention in August?
It would be up to the delegates at the convention to select a new nominee. It's thought that Biden's selection of a vice presidential candidate would be considered the frontrunner. But other candidates could try to make their case to the delegates.
In the end, the candidate who receives a majority of delegate votes will be declared the Democratic presidential nominee.
What if a party's presidential nominee dies between the convention and Election Day?
This is still pretty straightforward. If this happens, the national political committees would meet and select a new nominee.
Now, if the death took place in October, a number of states would have already started early voting, including Vermont, where early voting begins 45 days before an election. But it's thought that this really wouldn't be a problem, because voters in November are technically voting for a slate of electors, not a specific candidate. So votes for the candidate who died would be transferred to the party's replacement candidate.
However, if this happened, let's say, a week before the election, Congress does have the authority to reschedule the election to allow time for a new candidate to be selected.
No presidential candidate has ever died in this time period. But one vice presidential candidate did.
It was 1912. Then-Republican Vice President James Sherman died in late October, just before the election. (He was the first vice president to fly in an airplane and the first to throw out the first pitch at a baseball game). He was not replaced on the ticket with President William Howard Taft. That vacancy became a moot point when Woodrow Wilson won the election.
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What if a party's presidential candidate dies between Election Day in November and the Electoral College meeting in December?
We’re now headed into unchartered waters that can probably only be resolved by the U.S. Supreme Court. Here's why: different states have different rules regarding how electors can vote. Now, some states like Vermont require the electors to vote for the winning candidate. You have to, but that person is now dead. So what do you do?
Some states allow electors to vote for somebody else. It almost never happens, but it could legally. (As a side note, the U.S. Supreme Court is actually reviewing a case right now about whether or not a state can bind its electors).
Now, if the electors were not bound to vote for the winning candidate, they were they would be free to vote for whoever they wanted to.
In 1872, Democratic presidential candidate Horace Greeley died between the election and the meeting of the Electoral College in mid-December. He only won a couple of states and some electors did vote for Greeley. Some did not.
But when Congress met in January of 1873 to certify the Electoral College votes, they threw out all the votes for Greeley because he was a dead candidate.
Again, it was a moot point because President Grant was reelected that year.
What if a party's presidential nominee dies between the Electoral College meeting in December and the Senate confirmation vote in January?
If this happens, everything is up for grabs. The 20th Amendment says if the president-elect dies before beginning his or her term, then the vice president-elect is chosen.
That seems pretty straightforward, but there's a legal debate over when a person actually becomes “president-elect.” Does it happen after the Electoral College votes in December, or after Congress certifies the Electoral College vote in early January?
At this point, the U.S. Supreme Court would be asked to step in and then rule on that issue.
