Which Greco-Roman writer famously observed that the number of idols or deities in the ancient world surpassed that of its human population? This statement is often attributed to Pliny the Elder, but upon reviewing his works, I was unable to locate the exact citation. Could this remark originate f...
US presidential election seems to happen every 4 years ever since independence.
Occasionally vice-presidents have taken over the president's role mid-term.
But is there any provision for a mid-term election?
The answer right now is "no", of course. However, I didn't realize that presidential succession (if no VP is available) was actually set by Congress, not the Constitution. Which means Congress could, in theory, pass a law providing for off-year presidential election if both President and VP were to end up vacant. They in fact had that early on.
Right now there's a rather long set succession (and in practice one can't imagine a non-disaster situation where multiple positions end up emptied at once). I didn't realize everything past VP in the succession was set in law though.
There might be another I'm unaware of, but there's only one incident I'm aware of where VP and President were both vacated in the same 4 year term: Ford replaced Spiro Agnew as VP in 1973 after the latter pled out of charges on a government kickback scandal and resigned. Then less than a year later he ascended to the Presidency when Nixon resigned in the wake of the Watergate scandal.
If the two had happened closer together (while physically possible, I suspect it would not have been politically possible) then in theory the Speaker of the House, Democrat Carl Albert (from I-shit-you-not Bugtussle Oklahoma) would have become President.
US presidential election seems to happen every 4 years ever since independence.
Occasionally vice-presidents have taken over the president's role mid-term.
But is there any provision for a mid-term election?
