Communities

Writing
Writing
Codidact Meta
Codidact Meta
The Great Outdoors
The Great Outdoors
Photography & Video
Photography & Video
Scientific Speculation
Scientific Speculation
Cooking
Cooking
Electrical Engineering
Electrical Engineering
Judaism
Judaism
Languages & Linguistics
Languages & Linguistics
Software Development
Software Development
Mathematics
Mathematics
Christianity
Christianity
Code Golf
Code Golf
Music
Music
Physics
Physics
Linux Systems
Linux Systems
Power Users
Power Users
Tabletop RPGs
Tabletop RPGs
Community Proposals
Community Proposals
tag:snake search within a tag
answers:0 unanswered questions
user:xxxx search by author id
score:0.5 posts with 0.5+ score
"snake oil" exact phrase
votes:4 posts with 4+ votes
created:<1w created < 1 week ago
post_type:xxxx type of post
Search help
Notifications
Mark all as read See all your notifications »
Incubator Q&A

Welcome to the staging ground for new communities! Each proposal has a description in the "Descriptions" category and a body of questions and answers in "Incubator Q&A". You can ask questions (and get answers, we hope!) right away, and start new proposals.

Post History

66%
+2 −0
Incubator Q&A Is there an explicit law that you can reject being elected President (in the US)? If so, which law?

The public votes in November. The results are publicized shortly thereafter. Then the electoral college has the real vote in December. If you were elected against your will, you would probably fin...

posted 3mo ago by matthewsnyder‭

Answer
#1: Initial revision by user avatar matthewsnyder‭ · 2024-02-16T08:55:44Z (3 months ago)
The public votes in November. The results are publicized shortly thereafter. Then the electoral college has the real vote in December.

If you were elected against your will, you would probably find out in November, and your unwillingness would probably become known to electors before they vote.

In states where it's allowed, the electors would probably just vote for someone else, since there is little point in electing a candidate who doesn't want to serve. In states where it's not allowed, they may be able to still vote for someone else by constructing an argument that unwillingness is as inability. But then again, the candidate could have a change of heart after being elected, so that argument is not so robust. In principle, if you managed to win in the right states (the ones that forbid faithless electors) and did this, it could trigger a crisis, but it would probably be resolved by an emergency court ruling allowing the electors to vote for someone else.

If the electoral college really elected you against your will, you could simply resign. Your VP would succeed you.

* https://abcnews.go.com/538/biden-trump-suddenly-leaves-2024-race/story?id=106136493
* https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/what-happens-if-a-presidential-nominee-can-no-longer-run-for-office/
* https://www.cnn.com/2024/02/12/politics/presidential-candidate-race-drop-what-matters/index.html