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I would like to address the issue of electing a president that was not nominated; that would be true except that, again, if the President resigns after election, the VP takes over. There is little difference here. The Presidential candidate leaves and the VP steps up. Just my opinion. As to the personal attack by JoeP in this request, I am offended and I request that his words be stricken and not considered.

Timothy Frogue

While a Prez candidate can step down during the term of office and the VP has to take on the role of President (been there, done that, please refer all question to my esteemed 2APDir :P) the VP usually has some experience in the role by the time that happens (technically it could happen on day 1 of the term, but that’s extremely unlikely). What you’re suggesting is that if at any point prior to becoming president, the president steps down, the VP gets take over that ticket, regardless of experience, etc.

These leads to a few issues:

1) As already pointed out, it essentially makes the nomination process meaningless. Two members nominate Candidate A. Candidate A names Candidate B as their running mate and then subsequently steps down. Under your proposal, Candidate B is not automatically allowed to run as President and name a running mate - even if Candidate B was unable to find two members to nominate them. That’s a bit of a problem.

2) For better or for worse, members generally vote for the Presidential candidate, not the ticket as a whole. Your proposal is that if the Presidential candidate steps down at any time - including during voting it appears - the VP candidate gets to continue running as Prez, with all of those votes - even if the voters think there’s the other Presidential candidate is better than the VP candidate who now wants to be Prez. That’s completely unfair to the voters, and turns the electoral system on its head.

3) You are giving more discretion to a VP candidate than a Presidential candidate. In the remaining rules - which you are not proposing to change - if between nominations and voting a VP candidate steps down, the Prez candidate can only continue running if the Election Coordinator believes there are special circumstances. If the VP candidate steps down after voting stops, the Prez candidate is disqualified without exception. What you are proposing is that if the Prez steps down anytime at all, the VP gets to continue running as Prez without the EC having to exercise their discretion. You see the inequality issue there, right?

There may be ways to renedy this proposal, at least so far as it is a bit more debatable - I’ve even made some suggestions further in this post. But I really am left wondering if this is a solution looking for a problem, rather than a problem looking for a solution.

While Joe may have been a bit more forceful in his original reply on this proposal, his underlying concern remains there. The only VP candidate I know who has had an issue with the rules is, well, you - when your running mate ran what was, frankly, a horrendous campaign, and got himself disqualified, leaving you as a VP candidate without a ticket to then run on. I’m not convinced that that result was a “problem” - the ticket’s campaign ended in a way that showed the ticket was obviously unsuited be in charge at the time, at least based on how that ticket was campaigning. In that sense, there was no “unfairness”. That is, there was no problem that now needs a solution. And I am not aware of any other situation where a Prez candidate steps down where equities and fairness should have allowed the VP candidate to still run. To a very, very large extent, the VP candidate is really an extension of the President’s campaign. If the President’s campaign is unable to continue, that includes the VP, and that generally makes sense.

Now, if I’m wrong, and there really is a problem here that needs a solution, at a minimum you should be mirroring the rule for when a VP steps down. That is, if a Prez candidate steps down after noms but before voting, the VP may be allowed to continue campaigning as Prez, but only with permission of the EC when there are special circumstances. After voting, the ticket is disqualified no matter what. This would deal with issue #2 and #3 I addressed above. It does not resolve the nomination issue. And to be clear, I’m not endorsing this proposal - I’m just saying that if we’re somehow going to to make this kind of change, that would be the starting point.

Daniel