ed

 

There has been a lot of speculation and outright lies concerning what happens if a candidate drops out of the presidential race.  The first thing you need to know is that Obama has no power to cancel or delay a federal election.  That power rests solely with Congress.  Even their power is limited.  They could vote to delay the election, but they would need to hold the election in December.  Presidential terms run out on January 20th, but congressional terms end on January 3rd.  But they are not bound to delay the election.

If they do nothing the election day remains November 8th.  The democrats have rules in place that would allow them to replace Clinton with someone selected by the elite of the DNC.  The democrats would fight that tooth and nail because there are many early votes already cast for Hillary and would not be transferred to the new candidate.  States would have to cancel all votes received during early voting.  Or they could cancel just the votes for Hillary.  But they cannot change the November 8th date for the election.  That would leave them little time to allow revoting.

No matter the case, Obama leaves office on January 20th regardless.  After that, either Joe Biden or Paul Ryan would become acting president until one can be elected.  Republicans would never allow it.

Now, here is something that will surprise a lot of folks.  The constitution does not require popular elections for selecting a president.  The first five presidents were not selected by popular votes.  Their state legislators selected a candidate who then received that state’s electoral votes.  John Quincy Adams was the first president to be elected by popular vote.

That leaves us with two other possibilities.  The states can forego the popular vote and allow their state legislators to select the candidate.  This would be a disaster for democrats.  Currently, 31 states have an undivided legislatures led by republicans.  ii states have democratic controlled legislatures.  8 states have split legislatures.  Unless #NeverTrumpers decide to vote for Hillary, Trump wins hands down.

The final possibility is that neither candidate receives 270 electoral votes.  In that case, the House of Representatives votes by a simple majority for the new president.  This happened once before when Jefferson and Burr tied at 63 Electoral votes each.  Alexander Hamilton decided to back his long time nemesis Jefferson and that is why Burr challenged him to a duel and killed him.  The House is current led by the republicans who hold a 246-186 advantage with three open seats.  So, therefore we would have to assume that Trump wins that way also.

All of this is really unnecessary because the only way Hillary can avoid prosecution is to get elected president, so she won’t drop out even if the DNC pressures her.