Alternate Electoral Maps
- Thread starter Tayya
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Jesus... Also, I see someone's been prepping for his TL by looking into bygone constitutional arrangements
Actually I knew most of this before, and gleaned the specifics of the 1860 situation off Wikipedia. What can I say, American constitutional law is fun and riding the train isn't.
Thande
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Thanks - I always forget something with how complicated the US succession has been over time...
Haven't they only been changed a few times total over 250 years? The 1792, 1886, and 1947 Acts moved some things around; the Twenty-Fifth Amendment in 1967 added in some clauses; plus the removal of the Postmaster General and the addition of the Secretary of Homeland Security to the mix. It's relatively simple to keep track of things if you know when the crisis's are going to strike.
It's also a lot of fun because you can really impress people even thought it's not all that complicated. It's stupid as heck, no doubt about that, but it's not too complicated.
Thande
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It's complicated when you're from a country whose approach to succession is "er...we've not really bothered thinking about that...can't you just have another election or something?"
We have to put so much energy into worrying about the succession of our largely ceremonial monarchy.
I mean, succession to the premiership is really very simple - the monarch chooses whomever they want. It's when you try to bring democratic accountability into the picture that the system breaks down.
Thande
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I'm not sure if the US can ever have been said to have democratic accountability once the succession goes beyond the VP - you're ultimately going to go to someone who owes their new national position to either being appointed by the last president (who everyone may have just violently voted against their record) or nowadays a few thousand voters in Delaware or whatever. (Or in the case of many Representatives whose seats are unopposed, nobody).
The least democratic version of them ascending to power would be: unopposed in primary and general election for Representative every two years for a couple decades. Unopposed as they are elected to each rung of the House Leadership. House declared them Speaker viva voce. President and Vice-President are both assassined directly after they are sworn in. President for four years without anyone having ever opposed them.
"President forms Unity Party, gets the endorsement of GOP and Democrats after two unopposed primaries."
"New laws essentially bans third parties, so there's only the big two's choice on the ballot!"
"PRESIDENT ELECTED TO A SECOND TERM IN A LANDSLIDE! (actually with no others on the ballot)"
If this looks bad, take a look at the 1854 congressional elections and imagine if 1856 had been a hung EC...
Chicxulub
Banned
Hillary Clinton / Tim Kaine - 27.39% (272) Democratic
Ted Cruz / Carly Fiorina - 14.16% (93) Conservative
Donald Trump / Mike Pence - 22.67% (76) American
Bernie Sanders / Elizabeth Warren - 21.43% (70) Progressive
Marco Rubio / John Kasich - 13.05% (27) Republican
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Increasing the American popular vote by 5% at the expense of the Democrats leads to this:
Democrats - 124 EVs - 40.3%
Republicans - 125 EVs - 33.1%
Know Nothings - 47 EVs - 26.1%
After this, I assume after a couple of ballots Millard Fillmore is elected president by a coalition of Know Nothings, more moderate Democrats, and some Whigs. More conservative Democrats and the Republicans of course object however. John C. Breckinridge is elected by the Democrat senate easily. 1860 after this would be very interesting.
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I don't know about that. The Southerners really didn't like Fillmore. They were the reason after all that Fillmore wasn't nominated in 1852.
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