Let’s scare ourselves with the worst-case election scenarios!
Trump could win. Millions apply for passports. They can’t be issued fast enough. Congress jacks the fee up. One passport costs $10,000. Airlines charge sky-high for flights out of the U.S. People drive, walk, hitchhike, instead. Canada and Mexico send most of them back, telling them it’s premature, try again if the constitution is suspended.
Clinton could win. As I’ve said before, this will end feminism, just like electing Obama ended racism. Eleven states will secede. Putin will back them. I predict no nukes, but remember the Ride of the Valkyries helicopter attack in “Apocalypse Now”? Learn how to survive napalm attacks.
OK, I’m being paranoid, but I did warn you these are worst-case scenarios.
But there are other candidates. And what about all the people who say they’ll write in votes for Sanders?
Very few write-in votes for Sanders will be counted. Here in Washington state, none will be. Bernie would have to apply to the state for his write in votes to be counted. The deadline is 18 days before the election. But he can’t apply because he lost his eligibility by appearing on the state primary ballot.
What’s that? “No fair! The Democrats didn’t use the results of the state primary!” says somebody screaming in the back. Fair! The rule is, if you let yourself be on the state primary ballot for a party, and that party doesn’t nominate you, Washington won’t count write-ins for you.
Altogether about 40 states won’t count Bernie write-ins, just because he won’t apply for them to be counted.
What if a third party candidate wins? I will explain below why this is highly unlikely, but for now, let’s go with it.
Being third party candidates whose parties have almost no representation in the House or the Senate and will continue to have next to none at least until 2018, we will have two years of the gridlockiest gridlock we’ve ever seen. Because we’re used to congressional gridlock, be happy our new pain is just like the old pain we’ve grown accustomed to.
But it is not likely a third party candidate will win. Because the Constitution says you don’t win a presidential election by getting more electoral college votes than everyone else. You have to actually have more than 50 percent of the total number. There are 538 possible votes. To win a candidate has to get 270 of them.
Strong showings by third party candidates could conceivably net them a plurality but an absolute majority is extremely unlikely if Trump or Clinton both remain in the race. (The circumstances that would result in one of them to be out of the running would be catastrophic. Thus see the above civil war scenario, helicopters, etc.)
So an outcome that keeps Trump or Clinton from getting a majority would probably get no one a majority. What then?
Well, then the 12th and 20th Amendments to the Constitution kick in.
The first thing that happens is the current House gets to convene and decide who should be president on January 20, based on one-state-one-vote. The entire idea that states get a say proportional to their populations is abandoned by the 12th Amendment, on the theory, I guess, that if that didn’t work in the election, lets flip it and try its opposite.
You might think they would vote for the plurality winner of the people’s vote. If you think that you probably believe in the Easter Bunny. More than 30 of the 50 states have more Republican than Democratic in the House.
In the remote chance that this House can’t vote Trump in or is afraid to, Joe Biden becomes acting president on Jan. 20 until the next House picks someone. We will all be biting our nails for months. Pharmaceutical companies will be happy, especially those that make anti-anxiety meds. Then we’ll probably still get Trump.
The exchange of the week: Hillary asked “A man you can bait with a tweet is not a man we can trust with nuclear weapons.” Trump then tweeted, “Crooked Hillary Clinton made up facts about me, and ‘forgot’ to mention the many problems of our country, in her very average scream!”
These were worst-case scenarios only. Relax, it won’t be so bad. Vote wisely.