What if the president-elect dies before the Electoral College votes?
“It would still be theoretically in the hands of the national committees,” said Walter Berns, author of “After the People Vote,” a study of post-election issues. Sherman’s bill recommends that the parties name stand-by candidates at their nominating conventions. But members of the Electoral College are chosen by the parties, Berns said, and these “independent actors” may not like the replacement candidates. Some scholars have theorized that electors could vote for a deceased candidate and thus immediately kick in succession laws, bumping the vice president into the presidency. But, in 1872, when a few electors cast votes for a dead candidate who had lost the popular vote, Congress declined to count those votes. This period between Election Day and Inauguration Day is “an ambiguity in the succession law,” Baird said. At issue is whether a candidate becomes “president-elect” after the popular vote or after the Electoral College votes – Dec. 15 this year. What if the president-elect dies
