How are ties in a US Congressional election dealt with? Suppose candidates Alice and Bob are running for US House of Representatives in a Colorado district, and are the only people to do so in that district. The final vote tally (after whatever challenges Alice and Bob decide to throw) comes out to a tie. How would the tie be broken?
Election procedures are generally a matter of state law, so the process will be different from one state to the next. In Colorado, the law in question is Colo. Rev. Stat. § 1-11-101: If at any general or congressional vacancy election ... any two or more persons tie for the highest number of votes ... for representative in congress ... the secretary of state shall proceed to determine by lot which of the candidates shall be declared elected. The question then becomes how the secretary of state will &quot;determine by lot&quot; who is the winner. As far as I can tell, this process is not established by statute, nor has the secretary of state promulgated any administrative regulations establishing a system for drawing lots. In other states, it typically comes down to something quite random: flipping coins, drawing names from a hat, dealing poker, etc; I assume the secretary of state could choose any of these. The answer could be different for other races, though. Both chambers of the General Assembly would vote on a joint ballot to decide a tie in a race for governor, secretary of state, treasurer, or attorney general. This also assumes that Bob and Alice are facing off in the general election, not the primary. In a primary, tying candidates get to choose their own tiebreaker. If they can't agree on one, the secretary of state chooses by lot.
Based on some quick searching, this would likely be a wrongful death action. I have to pick a state, so I'll pick Nevada. The first question is what damages could be. I don't know offhand what is typical in wrongful death suits, but this appears to be beyond mere negligence: there was a hit and run involved. I have no trouble believing the claim would reach at least six figures. This is important, because federal diversity jurisdiction only includes lawsuits with over $75,000 at stake. Now, Santa Claus's citizenship matters; if he were stateless it'd be an issue, but he is a citizen of Canada. That means that federal court has diversity jurisdiction: because the lawsuit is between a citizen of one state on one side and a foreign citizen on the other (no state has citizens on both sides of the lawsuit), and meets Congress's extra requirements (enough money at stake), it can be in federal court. The way diversity jurisdiction works is that the plaintiff can file in federal court, but if they choose to file in Nevada court then the defendant can remove the case to federal court. Either party can get it into federal court. Conventional wisdom is that federal court is more defendant-friendly than state court on state law claims. It is likely that if Grandpa files the case in any court in Nevada, the case will end up in the United States District Court for the District of Nevada. But suppose it is in state court? Most states don't have separate "county court" and "state court" systems; county courts are a thing, but they're a specialized thing and the serious stuff is not in those. A six-figure wrongful death claim won't go in Nevada's equivalent of small claims court. It'd go in Nevada district court, if it's in state courts. But what about other courts? Grandma was walking home, so it can be assumed she was a Nevada resident. Assuming Grandpa lived with her (which is rather likely), so is he. They then can't sue in any US state other than Nevada without being laughed out of court -- a lawsuit needs to have something to do with where you're suing. The other option is Canada, but such a suit is unlikely.
There seems to be no current applicable prohibition state law in Iowa in Iowa Code 39A, the Election Misconduct and Penalties Act. It is also not at all clear that precinct caucuses count as "elections" as applicable to the sections with criminal prohibitions (the precinct caucus does not appear to constitute a "primary election" under Iowa law).
My understanding is that the syndicate would be committing an act of extortion. Under the RICO Act, IF the politician conspired with the syndicate OR IF the politician had something like an 'understanding' with the syndicate, then they (any, and all involved) could be charged with the crime (extortion), racketeering and conspiracy. Additional crimes/laws to consider: Campaign finance violations Money laundering Compelled speech (1st Amendment)
You can see the whole regulations on www.legislation.gov.uk. It is a referendum. There does not need to be a &quot;winner&quot;. A referendum is meant to understand what the general populace wants. And &quot;they are split exactly 50/50 between X and Y&quot; is a valid result in that frame. The point that made this referendum special was that the ruling party had promised, that they would actually do what the referendums outcome would suggest, even if they were not legally bound by it and were not even in favor of it as a political party. So what the ruling party would have done when confronted by an absolute exact tie (not only percentages, but actual votes) is anybodies guess. I don't think anybody had a backup plan for what happens if the 33,577,342 votes came out exactly 16,788,671 to 16,788,671. The chance of that... was not real. You prepare for that about as much as for an alien invasion on election day.
A person should register to vote in their state of residence. Aka the state where they claim to be a resident. Unfortunately, residency is defined by the individual states and the definitions aren't consistent. Even more unfortunate is that the state where a person is registered to vote is often used as a criteria in determining a person's state of residency. So, chicken and egg. Unfortunate on top of that is that residency requirements are different according to purpose. For example you may fit a definition of resident for the purpose of vehicle registration but not for income tax purposes. The important thing is to be consistent. If a student claims to be a resident of her home state so she doesn't have to change her vehicle registration, she should not claim the school state in order to get out of income tax (or any such things). After consistency, be reasonable. Based on your facts, I think FL is the best bet. She lives there and intends to live there. That's also a good place to pay taxes! But there's the rub. If she tries to claim FL as her residency for income tax purposes someone might take issue with the fact that she hasn't moved her drivers license. TLDR; plan to register where you'll live when the election happens. If anything is glaringly wrong with that plan, seek alternatives. There is nothing glaringly wrong with registering to vote in FL. Oops, forgot to add, this document purports to summarize state laws regarding registration: http://www.eac.gov/assets/1/Documents/Federal%20Voter%20Registration_6-25-14_ENG.pdf
The Federal Election Committee's Congressional candidates and committees campaign guide (212-page PDF) has lots of information about how campaigns must be run under federal law. All candidates for US Federal offices with over $5000 of donations or expenditures are required to register a campaign committee with the FEC. Campaign donations are generally accepted by the campaign committee (not the candidate himself/herself) and disbursed by same. Within 15 days after an individual becomes a candidate as described in Section 1, he or she must designate a principal campaign committee. This designation is made by filing either a Statement of Candidacy (FEC Form 2) or a letter with the same information. 101.1(a) and 102.12(a). Within 10 days after it has been designated by the candidate, the principal campaign committee must register with the FEC by filing a Statement of Organization (FEC Form 1). 52 U.S.C. §§ 30102(g), 30103(a); 102.1(a). This committee would probably still exist after the candidate's death,* and would be responsible for any decisions regarding the disposition of remaining campaign funds at that time (just as if the candidate had withdrawn from the race.) So by law, the answer is &quot;the campaign committee&quot;. The FEC does place restrictions on what a campaign can do with leftover funds, but the options are: Settling debts. Note, in fact, that the campaign committee cannot terminate its operations if it has any outstanding debts or obligations. (p. 137 of the FEC guide) Start a non-profit organization. Convert to a multicandidate committee (this is really just a special type of non-profit, I suppose.) Donate the unused funds to charity. Donate the unused funds to another candidate's committee, subject to a $2000 limit. (p. 19) Donate the unused funds to a party organization (no limit as far as I can tell.) So: The treasurer's idea of paying off the debts is in fact required by law before the committee can wind down its operations. The campaign committee can't send more than $2000 directly to any other federal candidate, so John's wife and John's replacement are constrained in this regard. Beyond that, where the funds end up will depend on who is on the campaign committee and what procedures the committee uses to make decisions. *Technically, it appears to be legal for the candidate to be both treasurer and custodian of records for their own campaign — which are the only two positions on the committee required by law. It is conceivable that a campaign organized in this way could end up with &quot;orphaned&quot; funds, without anyone authorized to dispose of them. I'm not sure what would happen in this case.
The Board of Estimates still gave small boroughs like Staten Island more representatives per voter than large boroughs like Manhattan. Therefore it violated the one man, one vote principal which is evaluated with respect to all representatives having votes in a body, not just those that hold a majority. The analysis is to take all at large seats that don't violate the one man, one vote rule off the table and look at the fairness of the allocation of the remaining seats. This was an easy case, not a hard one, for the U.S. Supreme Court. The leading case are: First, Baker v. Carr, 369 U.S. 186 (1962) (holding that malapportionment claims under the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment were not exempt from judicial review under Article IV, Section 4, as the equal protection issue in this case was separate from any political questions). As Wikipedia explains (links to selected full text opinions added): The "one person, one vote" doctrine, which requires electoral districts to be apportioned according to population, thus making each district roughly equal in population, was further cemented in the cases that followed Baker v. Carr, including Gray v. Sanders, 372 U.S. 368 (1963) which concerned state county districts, Reynolds v. Sims, 377 U.S. 533 (1964) which concerned state legislature districts, Wesberry v. Sanders, 376 U.S. 1 (1964) which concerned U.S. Congressional districts and Avery v. Midland County, 390 U.S. 474 (1968) which concerned local government districts, a decision which was upheld in Board of Estimate of City of New York v. Morris, 489 U.S. 688 (1989). Evenwel v. Abbott (2016) said states may use total population in drawing districts (as opposed to eligible voters).