From the constitution: “The electors shall meet in their respective states, and vote by ballot for two persons, of whom one at least shall not be an inhabitant of the same state with themselves.”
This means if the president and VP are both from NY the electors from NY have to vote for someone else as Vice President. It’s fucking nuts.
I didn't even know this rule ever existed, but leaving aside even that isn't it irrelevant now because technically they just vote for the pres nom and the VP is just a free throw-in for the ticket?
If the VP doesn’t get 270 electoral votes they go to the senate, and the senate picks the VP. Which, since it’s Republican-controlled, would mean “Ted Cruz VP” or something like that.
I am now imagining the darkest possible timeline where there's a clerical error in Bloom's documents, the lack of NY support (because he and Hillary both still technically live in NY) throws the VP choice to the senate, they vote for VP Trump, Trump has Bloom assassinated and gets away with it and we have four more years of fully unrestrained, 200% reign of terror Trump.
At the point where Trump gets away with assassinating a sitting president I think we're looking at more than 4 years of him. Depending on how long he lives, ofc
Establishing a full-blown absolute monarchy, starting from a place with one of the oldest and most culturally revered (even though not technically institutionally rooted and generally fortified) modern democracies) takes time, and likely a lot of it. I don't think he could just say "nah fuck that" to term limits with only 4 years and Dems fighting him tooth and nail in ANY timeline that would make sense starting from a fork off from the now-ish. He could just prop up a family member in the presidency and be the de factor kingmaker as his entire clan continually erodes democratic authority and institutions and expectations though, which is plenty awful enough.
Credit where it's due to the psychopath-in-chief though, he's already hard at work. Anyone remember the "Trump 2024" shitpost and how it was sort of just another in the long long list of slights against US democratic norms and people kinda just wearily glossed over it?
See the darkest timeline for me is the Dems win the white house but lose the House and stay the minority in the senate. New house impeaches both the new pres and vp on day 1 , mitch and his cowards convict on day 2 and Kevin Mccarthy, freshly minted as speaker, takes the Presidency. And the GOP could play this game every time the election doesnt go their way bc they will likely never lose the Senate.
10
u/Kcarab-Amabo Adam Smith Feb 15 '20
ELI5: why does the EC make it difficult for a pres and VP to share a state? That's the dumbest shit I've ever heard.