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Comment by jrs235 | Hacker News Reader

Here's one: A conversation about whether allowing this to turn into a national emergency could allow the cancelling or postponement of elections or executive hand over.

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Highly unlikely. In fact it really can't happen as elections are defined in the constitution. They would have to suspend the constitution, or pass some monumental law that would lead to not only a monumental meltdown at the court, but chaos in the streets. Good thought, fun conspiracy theory, but really so far out there it's unlikely.

I think it's more likely that low voter turnout in November (if this lasts that long) allows the administration to reject the results on the basis that "the people's voice was suppressed" - I agree they're not just going to call off the election, but I think it's pretty likely they'll try and cast doubt on the results if it goes against them.

Wouldn't be the first time

> but I think it's pretty likely they'll try and cast doubt on the results if it goes against them.

That is certainly true whether or not there is a pandemic. I don't think that inevitability really has anything to do with pandemics; they'd blame it on the phase of the moon if nothing else came to mind.

What area is more likely to have low turn outs due to a pandemic, densely populated areas or rural areas? How think about how each area tends to vote. This is probably moot because many states would likely go to mail in ballots. In Georgia you can already request an absentee ballot without being required to give a reason. States with more restrictive absentee rules would be under heavy pressure to change them.

Or test this:

"is a Presidential Directive establishing a comprehensive policy on the federal government structures and operations in the event of a "catastrophic emergency". Such an emergency is defined as "any incident, regardless of location, that results in extraordinary levels of mass casualties, damage, or disruption severely affecting the U.S. population, infrastructure, environment, economy, or government functions."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Security_and_Homeland...

It organizes the three branches under the President.

However, given that such an action is patently unconstitutional, if that were done it would be effectively the same as dissolving the nation.

How long would you remain under a government ordered quarantine, or restriction of movement, before you did something about it?

Giuliani did it. If anyone reminds Trump of this he might just get ideas in his head.

It's fairly likely that this will no longer be "a pandemic" by November, and that nobody will even be able to raise this as a concern in any sense.

The bigger problem is really with the Democratic primary, which is happening now. A critical element of elections is that they have to not just be fair, but be seen to be fair. How is the primary going to be seen to be fair if some significant number of the delegates are elected from elections that occurred while the electing states are essentially locked down? No matter what you do, it will be seen as unfair somehow.

Correct. They are using this to again snuff Bernie.

What "they" and how are they using it?

I have to assume you don't mean "The Democratic National Committee infected people with COVID-19." But I don't think I can puzzle out what you mean.

The DNC doesn't want bernie to have the nomination. The want status quo Biden.

It's really uncharitable to suggest they're "using" it then, since they don't control the pandemic. What should they do differently from what's being done right now?

Doesn't Bernie's supporter base skew younger than Biden's? It seems to me the average Bernie supporter has less to fear from corona than the average Biden supporter. If anything, fear of corona should suppress turnout for Biden more than for Bernie.

Oh please, Bernie has been underperforming his 2016 results consistently. And the vaunted big youth turnout has been absent.

Agreed, probably (hopefully) some combination of: drug therapies succeeding; mitigation measures succeeding; seasonal variability; accumulating immunity; normalization of risk of disease impact, will eventually get us to a new normal steady state.

e.g. we happily accept some risk of being killed in an airplane or road traffic accident even though those things could almost certainly be made less risky than they are now. We're ok with some non-zero risk, provided it's reasonably constant and known.

You can't cancel or suspend the elections, there is no provision for it in the Constitution. Also, Trump could never extend he time in office unless he is re-elected since there is literally nothing in the Constitution to extend a Presidential term unless elected.

The constitution doesn't actually decide what we do. Elections could be postponed, probably not all of them but enough that you wouldn't have real results. States would sue, it would make its way to the supreme court. The supreme court might find in the administration's favor, because they vote how they like; they aren't required to follow the constitution. They may rule against trump and trump ignores them; if the military is on his side, does he need anything else?

I'm not saying any of that will happen, but you talk as if our social constructs and institutions are barriers that limit where we can go, when in actuality they're breadcrumbs that we choose to follow.

Societies have flipped out before.

> The constitution doesn't actually decide what we do

The 20th Amendment: Section 1: The terms of the President and Vice President shall end at noon on the 20th day of January...

Section 3: If, at the time fixed for the beginning of the term of the President, the President elect shall have died, the Vice President elect shall become President. If a President shall not have been chosen before the time fixed for the beginning of his term, or if the President elect shall have failed to qualify, then the Vice President elect shall act as President until a President shall have qualified; and the Congress may by law provide for the case wherein neither a President elect nor a Vice President elect shall have qualified, declaring who shall then act as President, or the manner in which one who is to act shall be selected, and such person shall act accordingly until a President or Vice President shall have qualified.

If there's no election, he stops being President at noon on the 20th of January.

Sure, but that 20th day of January might come really late. The constitution does not define a calendar, time zone, or second. Suppose we add 80 more months. The 13th month is Trumpuary, the 14th month is Trumpember, and so on. Another option is to put Washington D.C. in a timezone that is off from UTC by 50000 hours. Another option is to make December 1000 days long.

Reading over your quote, it actually seems that a simple law could keep the president in power as long as no President elect or Vice President elect exists. As it says, "the Congress may by law provide for the case", "declaring who shall then act". Nothing says it can't be the old president.

12th amendment

On 6 Jan 2021, the votes of the electoral college will be counted in a joint session of Congress. Disputes about the votes will be addressed, if they exist (and if no general election is held, I'd imagine there would be plenty!).

Once that ends, if nobody has an absolute majority of votes, the Nancy Pelosi-led House of Representatives immediately goes into session and votes for President (the Senate votes for Vice President).

President Trump needs to win a fair election to continue being President.

It would be the new house, not the old one, and it is only permitted to choose from the candidates offered by the electors.

Also, does January 6th have to exist? By law, we could shorten January to just 5 days. We could compensate by lengthening March. There would never again be a January 6th.

The Constitution is the only thing that gives the government (and thus the nation) any authority. Violating the Constitution to that degree would essentially mean the end of the United States.

Who knows what would happen after that, but it likely wouldn't be anything anybody wants.

This didn't happen in WWI at the same time as the 1918 Flu pandemic, so I don't see it happening now. It was not a presidential election year, but elections were not cancelled from what I can find.

A much smaller and less urbanized population.

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