Scheduling hospitalization can raise constitutional issues • What happens when a president is unable to do his job?
Can Congress reverse the electors' decision?
• The burning questions
President Trump's hospitalization may raise legal and constitutional questions that the United States has not yet addressed. In some scenarios, the decision on the identity of the president may even reach the doorstep of Congress or the Supreme Court.
From Trump's Twitter
What happens when the president is neutralized and unable to perform his job?
The 25th Amendment to the US Constitution stipulates that the Vice President becomes President with full and permanent powers whether the President dies, is deposed or resigns.
There is also a unique statute in case the president goes into temporary incarceration, such as blurring surgery.
If even the vice president can not serve, who becomes the president of the United States?
The chain of transfer of powers in the constitution stipulates that after the Vice President, Speaker of the House, in the present case Democratic Nancy Pelosi, will receive the reins, followed by Acting President of the Senate, Republican Senator Chuck Grassley. .
If a candidate is absent during an election campaign, can he still be elected?
A party can change its candidate before the election, but at the current stage of the race there is no real possibility of that, because in some countries voting is in progress.
More than 2 million ballots have already been filled out by voters, and millions more have been sent to voters, and this year postal voting is particularly widespread due to the corona crisis.
Can an incapacitated or dead candidate still run in the presidential election?
Yes, and there have been cases where dead candidates have won elections for various positions across the US.
What happens if the winner of the election dies after the election of the electors on December 14, that is, after being declared president-elect?
The Constitution addresses such a case and stipulates that if at the beginning of the President's term, that is, on January 20, 2021, he is unable to serve - the Vice President is sworn in as President in his place.
This, on the assumption that Congress approved the electors' vote.
So can Congress actually reverse the electorate's decision?
The constitution stipulates that Congress counts the votes of electors in early January.
If Congress decides it is not willing to get votes for a candidate because he is in the doldrums, it means no one is getting a majority of electors.
If Congress rules out a candidate's victory because he's dead, who's appointed president?
Since the House of Representatives is also up for election in November, it is not known what its party division will be and therefore there may be surprises.
Also, each state has only one vote in the election of the president so even if a particular party has a majority in Congress, in the division into states the situation may be different.
After the House of Representatives elects a president, the Senate elects a vice president.
Is it possible that the issue will reach the doorstep of the Supreme Court?
Definitely.
For example, if Democrats get enough power in both houses of Congress and decide to act as outlined in the previous section, it is likely that Republicans will petition the courts to train the election of electors.