Okay so I know that when the president dies the vice president becomes president, even if an election has already happened but it’s before January 20th. But what if…
The vice president is the president elect, do they just get sworn in once or twice?
What if the president elect dies, does the vice president elect become president elect or do they have some special election or some congress stuff.
If the answer to 2. is the vice president elect becoming president elect, what if the former vice president elect also dies.
(1.) Just to be certain that I understand the scenario, you're asking about a President-elect who is already the incumbent Vice President, right? For example: if Kamala Harris had won the 2024 election but President Biden died in December 2024 during the transition period? In that scenario, yes, they would be sworn in twice. In their role as Vice President, they would assume the Presidency to finish the term of the President who died. On Inauguration Day, they would be sworn in again to begin the Presidential term that they had been elected to in their own right. We'll use Biden and Harris again as an example, but think of it this way: while Biden was the 46th President of the United States, his Administration (2021-2025) was the 59th Presidential Administration. The Administration which began on January 20, 2025 is the 60th Presidential Administration. So, in the scenario you asked about, if Vice President Harris had won the 2024 election but succeeded to the Presidency prior to January 20, 2025, she would have been sworn in to complete the unfinished 59th Administration and then inaugurated on January 20, 2025 to begin the 60th Administration. There wouldn't have been any sort of interregnum, but they are two separate Administrations.
(2.) Like many aspects of our Constitution, this particular scenario has not been fully tested, so there is a little bit of a gray area when it comes to who would become President-elect if the President-elect dies before the Inauguration. Theoretically, it would depend on when the President-elect died during the transition. If the President-elect died before the Electoral College met to cast its votes in December, most of the Electors would be able to cast their votes for a different candidate than the deceased President-elect. But, again, there's a bit of confusion there because while some states allow the Electors to cast their ballots for any candidate (which is how we get Faithless Electors), some states explicitly prohibit their Electors from casting their ballots for someone other than who the votes are meant to be pledged. It would likely depend on the election laws within each state. This has actually happened before, but not with the President-elect. In 1872, Ulysses S. Grant defeated Horace Greeley in the Presidential election, but Greeley died between Election Day and the meeting of the Electoral College. Greeley had won six states and was expected to receive 66 Electoral votes, but due to his death, most of his votes were split among four different candidates when the Electoral College met. Three Electors did cast their votes for Greeley despite his death, and those votes were invalidated because a dead person is ineligible to serve as President.
The biggest question mark is what would happen if the President-elect died after the meeting of the Electoral College but before the Joint Session of Congress met to certify the Electoral College results. In that case, the most probable scenario is that Congress would certify the votes of the deceased President-elect and the 20th Amendment to the Constitution would come into play, in which the Vice President-elect would assume the Presidency on Inauguration Day. But, again, this has never been tested, so we can't be 100% sure. Now, if the President-elect died after the Congressional certification of the Electoral votes but before Inauguration Day, the Vice President-elect would definitely become President -- that is pretty clearly specified in the 20th Amendment.
(3.) If both the President-elect and the Vice President-elect died after Election Day but before Inauguration Day, it would trigger Contingent Elections for both positions and Congress would elect the successors. The Contingent Election for President would take place in the House of Representatives and the Senate would hold the Contingent Election for Vice President. In the case of a Contingent Election, they would be held by the new Congress that had just been sworn in, not by the Congress that was in office in November at the time of the general election. It's also important to note that, in Contingent Elections, while the Senators cast their votes for Vice President individually (as they normally vote), the House votes for President by state. So each state votes within their caucus and then the states vote as a bloc. That means that it would actually be possible for the minority party in the House of Representatives to choose the President if they controlled more states overall.
As always when it comes to the Constitution -- particularly with Presidential succession -- this issue is a ticking time bomb and if we are at a point where it actually needs to be tested, we're already going to be in the midst of a major crisis.
