The Waterbury Democrat., 1944-06-28

hS W AVoVAOvRJkA when that body met in Chicago on
 the eve of the Republican conven- ton. Washington political analysts who have been trying to figure 1t out come up with the conclusion that 1t Is a scheme to make Senator Harry F. Byrd president by throw ing the election into Congress. Sen- ator Byrd Is in no way involved with the schemers and he has in fact given no encouragement to any plan to nominate him for the pres- idency. Political dopesters, seeing things under the bed, nevertheless say 1t could be done.
 HERE'S THE DEEP, DARK PLOT
 First step in the plot Is the Texas South Carolina Mississippi scheme to line up as many electors as they can, pledged to refuse to vote for Roosevelt.
 Second step would be for the Re- publicans to nominate coalition ticket with a Democrat-Senator Byrd-in second place, to appeal to the anti-Roosevelt wing of the Dem- ocratic, party. There Is no reason why the Republicans should do this if they think they can win without 1t, but for the sake of this silly plot, assume 1t could be done.
 Third, when the electoral college meets, Democratic electors from the insurgent southern states would cast their ballots for candidates other than Roosevelt and Wallace. Sup pose 1t were Senator Walter F. George of Georgia, Senator w.. Barkley of Kentucky, Jim Farley or anybody for president, and Byrd for vice president, and Byrd being the nominee of the coalition Re. publicans, he would also get some Democratic votes for vice president and so would be declared elected to that office.
 The election of Q president would be something else, If the electoral college split and no one received a majority, the election would be thrown into the House of Represen- tatives where. under the Constitu- ton, each stale would get one vote and 1t would require . majority of the state votes, or 25, to elect a president, They might even tie. There Is . further complication in that if the delegation of any state were tied, Its vote would not De counted. The i2 southern states might thus easily deadlock the House election, and nobody would be elected president.
 ALTERNATE POSSIBILITY
 In such predicament, the man elected to the vice presidency would become the president, just the same as if the president had died. And so might Senator Byrd or any other conservative Democrat on e coali- ton Sicket become president,
 There Is still another way, In case of a deadlock in the electoral col- lege vote for vice president as well as president, the election of the vice president is thrown automatically into the Senate, each senator hav- ing one vote and Q majority being necessary to decide. There, Senator Byrd would stand 6 better chance of getting 49 votes than Vice Pres- ident Wallace. And If the House were unable to name president, the Senate elected vice president would become president.
 None of these things Is likely to happen. But politicians spend their time thinking about such things and so they become important. What they prove, if anything, is that Q, s. election procedure under the Constitution needs some overhaul ing, to prevent Balkan comic opera plots from maturing and, if enough people feel that way about 1t, to prevent any future president from serving more than two terms.