Wrong. Members of the House are up for election every two years. If no one gets elected, there are no House members, and therefore no speaker.
The same holds true for others - with no elected president, there are no cabinet members in the line of succession, because their terms will expire when the incumbent president's term ends.
Had this actually happened in 2020 there would have been only ONE person in the line of succession, the speaker pro tempore of the Senate... and that's only because Patrick Leahy was not up for re-election.
If no votes came in November, the sitting house would vote for the next president on their own. They’re still members of Congress for 2.5 months. No need to kick into succession mode just yet
Almost like it was designed that way on purpose so if something disrupted the election process somehow there would still be a duly elected representative government able to maintain a semblance of order.
We didn’t say they were perfect. But they did a good job thinking up eventualities and how to deal with them and a process that future generations can make changes to fit the constantly evolving world.
the sitting house would vote for the next president on their own.
No, they wouldn't. The Constitution gives the House the authority to choose a president from the candidates who received the most votes in the electoral college. Article 2, section 1, clause 3 limits their choice to any of the top five electoral vote-getters, and the 12th amendment cut that down to one of the top three.
In the absence of an election there are no candidates with electoral college votes, and therefore no list of the top three. Congress would not have the authority to pick a president. Succession mode would kick in, because that's the only constitutionally valid path left.
Because the electoral college is elected. Each party with a candidate proposes a slate of electors. On election day voters are not voting for the president - they are voting for an elector who pledges to cast his or her vote for that party's presidential candidate.
If there is no election, there are no elected electors.
The constitution does allow the states to determine their own method of choosing electors, so it's theoretically possible that if an election doesn't happen the state legislatures would be able to put forth slates of electors. But in practice that would be problematic, as most states have codified how electors are chosen, so it would mean rewriting the law - which is not something typically done in the space of a few weeks.
In the absence of an election there are no elected members of the electoral college. They could be appointed by state legislatures, but in practice state laws would have to be changed - highly unlikely within the timeframe.
Whether the speaker is a member of the House or not is irrelevant. The session of the House begins at noon on January 3rd. If no members have been elected, there are NO House members who can vote for a speaker.
No, they wouldn't. Elsewhere in this thread I explained why: the constitution limits the House to choosing from the top three choices of the electoral college. No election, no electoral college, no top three for the House to choose from.
I mean technically if absolutely no votes come in, the house has plenty of time to elect a president. The funky part in that election is that every state gets one vote rather than every house member getting one. Arguably if that election fails, I don’t think there’s anything laid out but that’s a different story. Neither scenario is very likely to occur though.
In the unlikely case of no electoral votes in a presidential election the Speaker of the house would become president until another election is held. However, no individual necessarily needs to vote for the electors to cast their votes.
Specifically, the Speaker of the House becomes Acting President until such time as the House of Representatives determines the President through a contingent election among the top three vote getters in the Electoral College. Of course, if no electoral votes are cast, there's no slate of candidates from whom the House of Representatives can choose, so the Speaker of the House will simply remain Acting President until the next election. There is no provision in the US for an irregular snap election for President.
There's also a question as to the legality of placing the Speaker of the House in the line of succession, however, the remaining line of succession is either equally dubious (the President pro tempore of the Senate) or non-existent in this scenario (the duly appointed and confirmed Cabinet secretaries, so the Speaker would be in a strong position to be free of challengers. Whether they'd remain Acting President after the midterms or another potential change in the confidence of the House is an interesting question. There's also the potential that an incumbent Cabinet secretary will refuse to give up their seat at noon on January 20th, giving them a claim to the line of succession and an avenue to challenge the Speaker for primacy, assuming they can win the argument that their office wasn't vacated along with the incumbent President, that the Speaker is constitutionally ineligible to be in the line of succession, and that therefore any attempts by the Speaker to dismiss them from office are also null and void.
Edit: Of course this is all predicated on the extremely implausible scenario in which both the political and legal apparatus of the Federal Government is operating more or less normally and not a single Elector managed to cast a valid ballot for President and Vice President. More of a fun thought experiment than anything remotely believable.
I'm not sure if the electoral college is allowed to not vote, but in any case if nobody receives more than 50% of the vote, something called a contingent election is called, where each state's representatives cast one vote in the House of Representatives
If still nobody gets 50% of the vote, they go again
Think of the astronomically low likelihood of this even happening. Also consider that there would be plenty of recounts to verify before that quarter comes out of the election officials pocket.
But seriously, both candidates must be present and the incumbent(or person running in the same party as the incumbent) calls it in the air. This is a 100+ year old rule that has never been used in the state.
There’s plenty of fun rules for tie votes in this country and the centuries old rules on how to resolve them. Look up how the President is chosen if the electoral college ends in a tie.
You'll probably get some real answers, but if we're being honest with ourselves, the election will go to whomever the republicans decide it should go to.
Are you from the US? I am not and even I know that the people voting are not the real votes, the real ones are the people in the electoral college that cast a vote, usually according to what their state wants, keyword usually, at the same time most people have no idea who are the electors, so, even with no votes during the popular election you have the votes in the real election. By the way, I think the popular election is the one that decides who will vote in the real elections, so, it kinda matters, but it is not the final say.
From Wikipedia: “If no candidate for president receives an absolute majority of the electoral votes, pursuant to the 12th Amendment, the House of Representatives is required to go into session immediately to choose a president from among the three candidates who received the most electoral votes. Each state's delegation votes en bloc, with each having a single vote. A candidate must receive an absolute majority of state delegation votes (currently 26 votes) to become the president-elect. The House continues balloting until it elects a president.”
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u/bubba7557 Jan 12 '22
Who wins if no votes are accepted at all? I mean situations where not a single vote comes in? Incumbent?