If the VP takes over, that means that the USURPER picked our new President! Don’t REWARD him!
Biden was duly elected by the Electoral College to fill the office of vice president. We don’t get to ignore or transgress the Constitution just because we don’t like the outcome. That mindset is for the Left.
If, however, Biden was engaged in conspiracy to commit election fraud, it’s another story.
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Excuse me - you REALLY have got it wrong.
For the sake of argument, let us suppose that Obama is found to be ineligible ...
Now, a few facts:
1. Each state’s Constitution deems that ONLY eligible candidates can be certified to have won their election.
2. Each candidate has his OWN slate of electors. Take for example, Maryland (10 electoral votes). Obama/Biden had 10 individuals AND McCain/Palin had 10 separate individuals.
3. Obama won Maryland and HIS 10 individuals were seated in the Electoral College. They voted for Obama in January.
Now let us continue:
Since we are supposing that Obama is INDEED found to be ineligible, then HIS slate of electors in Maryland are automatically disqualified since he WAS INELIGIBLE to win in the first place.
Therefore, the person with the next most votes is certified the winner (McCain).
NOW, a NEW Electoral College would have to be formed, with each state that Obama won (and was subsequently declared ineligible) REPLACING Obama’s electors with McCain’s.
The reason for this is that the ORIGINAL Electoral College was constituted with INELIGIBLE electors (Obama’s). They NEVER should have been there in the first place.
The NEW Electoral College would vote for McCain, since ALL of the NEW electors would have been on McCain’s slate in each state. Presumably, they would also elect Palin VEEP.
Further - does Biden have a claim that he was duly elected as VEEP ??? Maybe, maybe not.
In states where you vote individually for POTUS and VEEP (there are not many, if any that do), Biden MIGHT be able to claim his slate of electors.
In states where you vote as a ticket (most do this), he MIGHT NOT be able to claim his electors. The reason is that some voters may have voted Obama at the top of the ticket, but WOULD NOT have voted for Biden IF he had been a the top. They could say that Biden was just “along for the ride”.
So where are we ???
1. A new Electoral College is unprecedented and NOT EXPRESSLY prescribed in the Constitution, BUT the INTENT of the Constitution is clear:
Article II - The Executive Branch, Section 1 - The President
” ... No person except a natural born Citizen, or a Citizen of the United States, at the time of the Adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible to the Office of President; neither shall any Person be eligible to that Office who shall not have attained to the Age of thirty-five Years, and been fourteen Years a Resident within the United States ...”
2. The Founding Fathers NEVER envisioned this kind of scenario, where an INELIGIBLE person was sworn in ONLY to find that the Electoral College was fraudulent in the first place.
3. Going strictly by the Constitution, a NEW Electoral College would seem to be in order. HOWEVER, those who voted for Obama would feel “disenfranchised” (gawd, I luv that word). Similarly, the Republicans would feel “disenfranchised” if Biden were to assume the Presidency - he got to be VEEP based on a fraud.
4. SCOTUS would obviously have to be involved in order to sort this out.
They could let the NEW Electoral College stand and then McCain would be POTUS. Palin would presumably be VEEP, but it could be Biden, if they let HIS election stand.
I would think that they might vacate the election all together and order a new one (each party would probably choose new candidates). A “Do-Over”.
5. In the interim, I think that SCOTUS would order the Speaker of the House to serve temporarily as POTUS (per the 20th Amendment and USC Title 3, Chapter 1, Section 19). This would ONLY be temporary until the new POTUS is elected.
BTW “Nancy Pants” Pelosi WOULD NEVER do ANYTHING outrageous in the interim since the country (on both sides) would be in an uproar over this mess.
Sources:
United States Constitution Article 2, Section 1.
United States Constitution, 12th Amendment.
United States Constitution, 20th Amendment.
United States Constitution, 25th Amendment.
United States Code, Title 3, Chapter 1, Section 19.
"...if the President elect shall have failed to qualify, then the Vice President elect shall act as President until a President shall have qualified..."
The Constitution, contrary to your opinion, is abundantly clear on this topic. If Obama had been shown to have failed to qualify between the election and the inauguration, Vice President elect Biden would have acted as President until a President would have qualified.
There would have been no new electors, and no handing over the presidency to the loser of the election.
The same principle would have to apply after the inauguration. If Obama is shown to have failed to qualify, Vice President Biden would become the Acting President until a new President would qualify.
The 25th Amendment allows the Vice President to become the actual President only in cases of removal, death or resignation. If Obama is fraudulent, he was never the President in the first place. Biden could only become the Acting President.
The 22nd Amendment allows for the possibility of the Acting President to carry out the rest of a term:
1. No person shall be elected to the office of the President more than twice, and no person who has held the office of President, or acted as President, for more than two years of a term to which some other person was elected President shall be elected to the office of the President more than once. But this Article shall not apply to any person holding the office of President, when this Article was proposed by the Congress, and shall not prevent any person who may be holding the office of President, or acting as President, during the term within which this Article becomes operative from holding the office of President or acting as President during the remainder of such term.
It would be a dark day for our nation, not only living with the shame of having a fraudulent president, but having an unstable man like Joe Biden become the Acting President. He would be an instant lame duck, and America would be weakened.
But the Constitution must be followed, no matter how painful it might be.