Is anyone here at FR an attorney who understands election law? Anyone? There’s too much speculation and contradiction going on here, I wish we had a true legal expert who could weigh in.
The plain text of the Constitution and the precedent of the 1864 election are quite clear. One does not need to be a lawyer to understand it. The authors of the Constitution were not lawyers, just citizen patriots, like us. They didn't write an intentionally obscure document that would require advanced training to decipher.
Quite the opposite, they wrote in simple English and made things quite clear.
Only the "Living Breathing" side believes that you need temple priests to interpret it.