The
2016 United States presidential election was held on November 8, 2016. For the first time in United States history, no winner was returned from the election. The election was contested between former Senator and Chair of the Kentucky Farmers Collective Rosemary Clayton, retired Admiral Alexandre-Lazare Desmond of Texas, and Chicago Deputy Mayor Father Harold J. Fleming.
There had been great political and economic turmoil in the United States in recent years. President Samuel Holliday had been removed from office in 2013 in the fallout of the San Clemente scandal, numerous members of his administration and allies in Congress were also implicated, and his New Federalism Party was decimated in the following elections. The destruction of one of America's two major parties in such a fashion, coinciding with the ongoing 2010s recession indicated that the Farmer-Labor Party (American Collectivist Congress), as the other major party, would easily be able to sweep the elections. However, this was not the case.
Admiral Alexandre-Lazare Desmond, a well known and widely respected nonpartisan figure who had been involved in exposing San Clemente, formed the "Good Morning America" movement after retiring from the Navy and resigning from the Holliday administration. The Good Morning movement fielded hundreds of candidates in state, local, and federal elections and won many of these races, upsetting the Collectivists' hopes for easy domination. Initially, Desmond and the movement focused on anti-corruption reforms and transparency in government. However, the degree to which they succeeded transformed their position from a small, but loud, watchdog bloc to a big tent political party. As a serious political party, they now had to take positions on serious political issues. The party's members, no longer united by one common goal, were divided by their disparate views. Desmond was unable to pull them together as he personally held many eccentric views which he had never had to express before. The incoherent party messaging was one problem, but it was compounded when Desmond was pressed on the critical issues and came down on the unpopular side of each. Angering urban workers by questioning sectoral bargaining, angering the farmers by opposing price control, and angering almost everyone with offhanded remarks about reversing banking regulations which had been in place since the 1983 crash. Desmond would have surely lost, if it had not been for his opponent being almost as unpopular as him.
Rosemary Clayton was born in the White House. Her father, Colton Clayton, had become the first president from the Collectivist Congress after the union of the Farmer and Labor parties. His untimely death two years into his term from a heart attack made him an almost mythical figure. It's JFK. Did you get it? That it's JFK? John F. Kennedy? You got it, right? John Fitzgerald Kennedy. That guy. It's him. Except like, he didn't get shot, he just ate too many steaks. After Colton Clayton's death, his wife Jeanie assumed his legacy and would become president for two terms of her own, becoming the great Collectivist president by whose standard all her successors would be measured. Rosemary grew up in the public eye during this time and was known as America's Baby. So why did everyone hate her when she ran for president?
Well, for a lot of reasons. Mostly it came down to her tenure as Secretary of War in the Morgan administration. Morgan had inherited the Third Bush War from his predecessor, which had been popular early on, but had become unpopular as the freedom fighters America was supporting became exposed for brutality matching and surpassing the dictatorial regimes they were fighting against. Clayton and Morgan had both ran for the Collectivist nomination as peacehawks, yet when they came into power, they found themselves unable to make peace. Withdrawing American troops appeared impossible without destabilizing the region, which would only prolong the war. Instead, Clayton became the face of Morgan's controversial troop increases. Though she eventually resigned in protest, she was permanently tied to the war. Another issue was that many Collectivist voters were uneasy with the feeling of dynasty, which was cited as a key factor in her failure to win the nomination in 2008. This time she prevailed against weaker opponents.
The big issue both main candidates had was in Nevada. Clayton had advocated for storage of nuclear waste in Nevada. The project was highly unpopular in that state, for obvious reasons, but popular everywhere else. The War Department oversaw the completion of the project and operation of the site, and their point man on the project was General Alexandre-Lazare Desmond. Desmond also held this responsibility early in the Holliday administration, but left as San Clemente unfolded. Nevertheless, he had been there long enough to make plenty of enemies in Nevada.
With two of the most hated politicians in Nevada running against each other, the state seemed to be ripe territory for a third candidate, Harold J. Fleming, known nationally as Father Fleming. A Catholic vicar, Fleming was officially the Deputy Mayor of Chicago, but was also the boss of the Chicago Democratic Party, the last bastion of the oldest political party in the world. The Democratic Party controlled all aspect of politics in the country's second largest city, and Fleming controlled all aspects of the Democratic Party. Internationally, he was known as a radical firebrand of the Catholic Church, and had many enemies in Avignon and beyond. His entry into the presidential race was surprising, as many remarked that he would be giving up power, but he insisted his campaign was "bring Christ back to America." To prove that he wasn't only appealing to Catholics, he had Alabama Senator Jubilee Carter, a Baptist, as his running mate.
However, Fleming was also unpopular in Nevada. He had quarreled with the local archdiocese, but more importantly he had quarreled with Las Vegas, the City of Sin. Nevada's new governor, Max Kaiser, was the owner of dozens of hotels, casinos,
brothels, and the state's three professional sports teams. He was Las Vegas. The people of the state elected him to save them from their corrupt partisan politicians, pull them out of the recession, and tackle the problems created by people like Clayton and Desmond. He had massively taxed the Las Vegas business community to fund programs to restore the state, partly out of a genuine desire to do good, and partly to destroy his competitors. Fleming was feuding with this man for profiting from vice, and thus by extension was feuding with his whole state.
With
three of the most hated politicians in Nevada now running against each other, many wanted Kaiser himself to enter. He declined, not wanting to be embarrassed by losing and only winning his state. Plus, he was enjoying his current job. Clayton and Desmond both tried to reach out to him to see if they could right their wrongs, but he rejected them. Knowing that despite the expected low turnout, the state would still be won by one of the candidates. Kaiser came up with the brilliant idea to tell them all to go fuck themselves by rallying Nevadans to their special ballot option: NONE OF THESE CANDIDATES. Already being proposed as a joke campaign by local activists, Kaiser jumped onboard and convinced all of Nevada's representatives and their two Senators, all of various parties, to join him. "Nevadans must stand up for ourselves and send a message that we will not be abused by Washington anymore," he declared. The campaigns weren't overly worried, even as polls began including NOTC as an option. It was a fun idea, but still unthinkable.
Then the unthinkable happened. "None of these candidates" had receive more votes than any candidate. Desmond had come in second, falling short by 1500 votes. Nevadans of all parties and affiliations rallied together to uphold their right to rejection and accordingly appointed a slate of electors for nobody. An automatic recount reaffirmed the result and the election went to the House.
Not so fast! "None of these candidates" isn't a legitimate option, Clayton and Desmond argued. Elections are contested between people, and votes for NOTC are the same as not voting. Desmond argued that all votes cast for NOTC had to be thrown out, while Clayton argued that NOTC was valid, but only for Nevada elections, not for national elections, as it was not an option in any other state or DC. Therefore, there should be a redo of the presidential election.
Clayton v. Redding (Oscar Redding being the Secretary of State of Nevada) was fought in a lower court, where it was decided that Nevada had the right to have an option different from other states, as each state is allowed to appoint electors however they choose. Clayton's appeal was rejected from the Supreme Court.
Desmond v. Redding challenged this ruling, arguing that Nevada could appoint electors how they wanted, but that NOTC was not a legitimate option as electoral votes had be given to a person. The Supreme Court rejected this 10-1 and upheld NOTC as a valid option. Thus, the results were finalized and the contingent election in Congress began.
In the House, there was a Collectivist majority, but they lacked control of enough state delegations to win the election. The other states had Good Morning majorities or no majorities. Most of these states went for Desmond, but Tennessee, Iowa, and New Mexico decided to join Nevada in voting for none of these candidates. Several ballots followed this trend, with more states from both sides eventually joining NOTC, to the point where NOTC had 23 states, Clayton had 14, and Desmond had 13. 3 more states breaking would give this unprecedented option a "victory." Seeing that it was lost, and that they were likely to win the Senate election, some Collectivists decided to throw their support to NOTC and finish the election. Legal experts on both sides agreed that it would be treated as if a president had simply vacated the office and the vice president had ascended.
The vice president was to be elected by the Senate from the top two options, meaning NOTC was not a choice here. In the Senate, there was a Collectivist plurality and an assortment of other parties and independents. Ultimately, Good Morning failed to unite the anti-Collectivist bloc and Malachi Wood was elected by his party and some independents. As the elected vice president, he would have become acting president under normal circumstances, but with NOTC "winning" the presidential election, he would directly ascend to being the actual president. However, before he could be sworn in, he was assassinated because that makes the story more chaotic. Actually, he was murdered by his mistress due to matters unrelated to the health of the body politic. Or Clayton had him killed out of vengeance. Or Doc Holliday's New Federalism boys did him in. He died. As such, at the end of President Caleb Doughtry's term, the Emergency Succession Act of 1986 was activated and former Vice President Tommy Ray Dixon was appointed Chair of the Presidential Transitional Authority by a majority vote of the whole Congress (272-245-18). Per the text of the 27th Amendment to the United States Constitution, a special election to fill the remainder of the term was scheduled for May 2017 and all candidates who stood in the 2016 election were barred.