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What happens if a nominee dies before taking office?
A viewer asked this question on 8/4/2000:
Heaven for bid that this should happen...
However, once a presidential nominee has accepted the nomination from his party (either Democratic or Republican or other) and prior to the election, he/she becomes ill, incapacitated, or die...who then succeeds him/her as the in the election process??? Where can I find a reference to this answer???
Thank you kindly for assisting me in understanding the political process
JesseGordon gave this response on 8/4/2000:
First of all, the Constitution is silent on this issue -- for that matter, it's silent on anything to do with political parties at all. So there's no Constitutional guidance at all.
Second, this HAS happened, or pretty close, in 1968, when Robert F. Kennedy was assassinated. He was killed in June after winning the California (and numerous other) primaries; the convention was in August. RFK would presumably have been the nominee had he not been killed.
I'm not too sure what his delegates at the convention did, but the Democrats picked Hubert Humphrey as the candidate. It was a turbulent convention, for all sorts of reasons, but RFK's death was part of the reason.
To answer the question, I assume it's entirely up to the party who has lost a candidate to decide what to do. It would seem polite to have the candidate who came in second in the primaries (McCain or Bradley) take over, but more likely there would be a special convention to choose a new candidate.
To be further polite, I would hope that the elections got postponed from November, to allow a fair race. The Constitution doesn't mandate November elections, so I guess that would be determined by Congress. But the surviving (opposing) candidate would prefer a quick election that he was pretty assured of winning, so who knows what Congress would do.
The other situation where this almost happened was with Pres. William Henry Harrison in 1841. He got ill immediately upon taking office (some say it was at his inauguration itself) and died 3 months later. His V.P., John Tyler, took over. Harrison was the first president to die in office.
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Whoa !! Interesting ! I am amazed that there doesn't seem to be an answer to this. It could happen..then what?
The Constitution is silent !!
You are in the context here of what happens after the convention, before the election. Once any given state has accepted the list of delegates for the Electoral College of each party, and printed ballots, then only that state could decide to reprint ballots or accept different delegate lists.
An arbitrary change of heart by a national party, unless it had a compelling story with it (a death, say), would be insufficient to get most states to change or reprint, and insufficient to get a majority of voters to follow. At least in most states - New Jersey being an obvious exception.
An outright loss (e.g. death) of a candidate would only put the power of selection back in the party's hands to the extent that the party could agree on a compelling alternative, quickly. In this case, compelling enough to overcome already printed ballots in some or most states with the departed candidates name on them.
As soon as it gets close to the actual election, it is simply too late to reprint ballots. Election results in the closely contested battle ground states would shift against any candidate whose name wasn't actually on the ballot.
This may work when done as a last minute surprise in a local or state election, especially if the party doing it already has massive corrupt control of the election. It fails on a national level unless the circumstances are highly favorable.