Election rules do not answer every continuity problem. The Twentieth Amendment sets January 20 as the beginning of the presidential term. If the chosen president dies before that date, the vice president-elect becomes president. If no president has been chosen or the president-elect fails to qualify, the vice president-elect acts as president until a president qualifies; Congress may provide for the situation in which neither chosen candidate qualifies. The Twenty-Fifth distinguishes a vacancy, when the vice president becomes president, from an inability, when the vice president serves as acting president. If both elected offices are unavailable, the Presidential Succession Act places the Speaker, president pro tempore, and then eligible Cabinet secretaries in a statutory line. Only an officer who satisfies the constitutional presidential qualifications may act under that line.

Suppose a president undergoes surgery and voluntarily transfers authority. The vice president becomes acting president; no vacancy has occurred and no new four-year term begins. If the president later resigns, the same vice president becomes president because the office is now vacant. A contingent election, president-elect problem, temporary inability, vacancy, and statutory succession therefore involve different triggers and actors.

Begin with the event: a failure to win an electoral majority, a president-elect problem, a vacancy, or an inability. Then identify the governing provision and the new officeholder's status. Do not infer a direct national election from candidate names on state ballots, and do not collapse a temporary transfer, a permanent vacancy, and movement through the statutory succession line into the same event.

Video lesson: Presidential Power: Crash Course Government and Politics #11