A Boca lawyer has filed a federal suit stating that Bush/Cheney can't become President and V.P. because they both live in the same state.

Funny

-- Anita (Anita_S3@hotmail.com), November 14, 2000

Answers

203 absentee ballots in Florida were postmarked at the Miami Zoo.

Funny2

-- Anita (Anita_S3@hotmail.com), November 14, 2000.

How fitting that those ballots should come from the zoo. This has, after all, become quite the circus.

So, do we know who the animaniacs voted for?!?!

-- Patricia (PatriciaS@lasvegas.com), November 14, 2000.

My guess is they voted a straight Republican ticket, Patricia...

Election worker Mona Garner is suspicious of the address on absentee ballots coming in since Thursday. It belongs to the city zoo. ``Many of these names are obviously fake,'' said Mona; ``Like Ellie Fants.''

-- CD (costavike@hotmail.com), November 14, 2000.

Anita,

Let's be clearer about the legal issue here.

The lawsuit does _not_ say that Bush cannot become President or that Cheney cannot become Vice President. There is no prohibition on the President and Vice President being from the same state.

But -- Electors from a particular state (e.g., Texas) cannot vote for both a President and a Vice President who are inhabitants of the same state as the electors.

That is, if a Texas elector votes for Bush, who is a Texas inhabitant, for President, then s/he cannot also vote for another Texas inhabitant for Vice President.

If Cheney is ruled to be legally an inhabitant of Texas, then the Texas electors each will have to choose to vote for Bush as President or for Cheney as Vice President, but not both. If all Texas electors vote for Bush as President, then Cheney cannot receive any Texas electoral vote.

This would not be a problem for Cheney or Bush if they had won a total of 302 or more electoral votes, because then either of them could do without Texas's 32 electoral votes and still have the 270 necessary to win.

Suppose Bush winds up with 271 electoral votes (from any combination of states including Texas), Gore/Lieberman wind up with 267, all electors vote as pledged insofar as possible, and Cheney is determined to be a legal inhabitant of Texas. Then the 239 non-Texas electors who vote for Bush can also vote for Cheney, but the 32 Texas electors can't (assuming they all vote for Bush). Then Bush will win election as President by a vote of 271-267, but the Vice Presidential vote will be: Lieberman 267, Cheney 239, and someone-other-than-Cheney 32. In that case, no one will have won a majority of electoral votes for Vice President _unless_ at least 3 Texas electors vote for Lieberman as Vice President (which is quite unlikely). Then the Vice President will be chosen by the Senate in accordance with the 12th Amendment of the Constitution.

-- No Spam Please (nos_pam_please@hotmail.com), November 14, 2000.

Then the Vice President will be chosen by the Senate in accordance with the 12th Amendment of the Constitution.

The Senate that--when the newly elected take office--may be composed of an even split of 50 Democrats and 50 Republicans...

-- Theme from (the@Twilight.Zone), November 15, 2000.

Bush/Lieberman!!!

-- (hmm@hmm.hmm), November 15, 2000.

Theme,

>Then the Vice President will be chosen by the Senate in accordance with the 12th Amendment of the Constitution.

>The Senate that--when the newly elected take office--may be composed of an even split of 50 Democrats and 50 Republicans...

... and presided over, until the end of his term of office, by the incumbent Vice President (Al Gore), who can cast a Senate vote if there is otherwise a tie vote. (Article I, Section 3)

Bush/Lieberman, indeed!!

-- No Spam Please (nos_pam_please@hotmail.com), November 15, 2000.

Re "Bush/Lieberman".....

A wacky thought, but, why not something along those lines? Why not a "coalition" kind of leadership?

Like I said, a wacky thought. (Plus, I have a headache that would kill a horse, so I don't know how well those neurons/synapses are firing up there.)

-- Patricia (PatriciaS@lasvegas.com), November 15, 2000.

... However, if the senators are 50 Republicans and 50 Democrats, there is nothing compelling all 50 Republicans to cast a vote for Vice President. In the case of a 50 (Lieberman) - 49 (Cheney) vote, no candidate for Vice President will have received a majority of the whole Senate, and the incumbent Vice President will not be able to cast a vote because there is no tie.

-- No Spam Please (nos_pam_please@hotmail.com), November 15, 2000.

OK, so what happens then?

-- Patricia (PatriciaS@lasvegas.com), November 15, 2000.

Patricia:

I think that even stranger things have happened. I remember as a child when the two candidates for President were tied and one became President and one Vice President. As I remember, one was a non-christian, intellectual from the south while the other was a war hero from the north. The intellectual won. How times have changed. Of course, I was just a child and this was a long time ago, so, I may not remember correctly.

Best wishes,,,,

Z

-- Z1X4Y7 (Z1X4Y7@aol.com), November 15, 2000.

Thanks, Z. I was wondering what would happen in No Spam's example (Lieberman 50, Cheney 49...).

And even now (later in the day, headache a bit better, neurons/synapses apparently working.....) I still think it's not a bad idea.

Face it, no matter who "wins" (and yes, that word must be put in quotes) half the country will most definitely NOT be "a fan".

I really don't much care at this point. I can't help but wonder how many people feel the same way I do?

Hope you are feeling better.

-- Patricia (PatriciaS@lasvegas.com), November 15, 2000.

Question:

Isn't Lieberman a sitting Senator unless he and Al win the election? Does he get a vote? or do the D's just lose that 1 vote?

-- capnfun (capnfun1@excite.com), November 15, 2000.

capnfun,

AFAIK, Lieberman's term as Senator doesn't end until 2002 or 2004. If that's so, he has to resign his Senate position in order to take office as VP. But he can remain Senator, and vote as one, until that point if he wishes. However, he would probably resign his Senate seat sooner than Inauguration Day if he indeed were elected as VP.

That is, if he chooses to be VP rather than Senator.

Since the Connecticut governor is Republican, he'd probably appoint a Republican to fill the vacancy when Lieberman resigned as Senator. So it has been speculated that Lieberman might, for the sake of retaining his Democratic vote in the evenly-split Senate, resign as VP (if elected) rather than give up his Senate seat.

Then, if I understand correctly, we'd go through the process of filling the VP vacancy the same way as when Agnew resigned -- in accordance with the second clause of the 25th Amendment. The President (Gore, in this scenario) "... shall nominate a Vice President who shall take office upon confirmation by a majority vote of both Houses of Congress."

-- No Spam Please (nos_pam_please@hotmail.com), November 16, 2000.

Patricia,

In the case of my theoretical Lieberman 50, Cheney 49 vote with 1 absention, it would take some deal-making to break the Senate deadlock.

However ... let's check back ... ah, yes ... in this scenario, Bush has already been elected President. So it would be churlish and unrealistic of the Democrats to insist on a Democratic Vice President at that point.

In fact, I consider it extremely unlikely that my hypothetical 50-49-1 Senate vote would occur even once. Almost surely, by that time one or more Democratic Senators would have agreed to support the Republican VP nominee for the good of the country. It's one thing to fight for every last vote in November, but quite another to refuse to break a VP deadlock in January when a Republican has already been elected President. By that time, the Democrats would already have gotten their mileage out of tweaking the Republicans for attempting the Cheney change-of-address.

-- No Spam Please (nos_pam_please@hotmail.com), November 16, 2000.

Also see the thread Palm Beach Post: New federal lawsuit says Bush and Cheney can't claim Texas' 32 electoral votes because both are inhabitants of the state -- a violation of the 12th Amendment.

http://hv.greenspun.com/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg.tcl?msg_id=0045H0

-- (rel@ted.thread), November 16, 2000.

Thanks, No Spam. I was kind of curious what would happen in that scenario.

I don't think that will be the case either; then again, who thought the "election" would have come to this?

:-)

-- Patricia (PatriciaS@lasvegas.com), November 16, 2000.

Note: The link at the top of this thread is now pointing to a different article than it did when this thread was started.

To see the article that is the subject of this thread, go to the thread that "-- (rel@ted.thread)" points out just above this posting. That thread has the entire article quoted.

-- No Spam Please (nos_pam_please@hotmail.com), November 16, 2000.

Wow...this is better than the O.J. trial!

-- Twists (And@Turns.com), November 16, 2000.

I have just read (and now agree) that Gore could _not_ cast any vote to break a tie if the Senate were voting to choose the Vice-President.

Reason?

The 12th Amendment says that if no one has a majority of electors' votes for Vice-President, then "... the Senate shall choose the Vice-President; a quorum for the purpose shall consist of two-thirds of the whole number of Senators, and a majority of the whole number shall be necessary to a choice." That last clause means a majority of the whole number _of Senators_, of which the Vice-President is not one.

So in case of a 50-50 tie in voting for the next Vice-President, the incumbent Vice-President's vote would not count because he is not a Senator.

That means that all our previous discussion of consequences of a 50-49-1 vote also applies to a 50-50 vote.

-- No Spam Please (nos_pam_please@hotmail.com), November 17, 2000.