It remains far from certain whether or not Joe Biden will cave in to the relentless calls from his own party and his former liberal media allies to drop out of the race. Perhaps it would be more accurate to ask if Jill and Hunter Biden will heed those calls. Either way, as of this morning Joe continues to insist that he will remain in the fight and that he is "in it to win it." But the possibility remains on the table and it raises some interesting questions in terms of our election laws and how such races are conducted. What will become of all of the primary ballots cast in support of Biden? Even more bizarre is the question of what would happen if Biden waited and dropped out after the general election ballots had already been printed or even after early voting had begun. There doesn't seem to be one uniform answer to these questions, but election officials in many states are saying that the Democrats could still save themselves and remain viable thanks to the peculiarities of the Electoral College. (Michigan Advance)

The Electoral College could help Democrats avoid a complicated situation in the event President Joe Biden withdraws from the race after his name is printed on ballots.

States Newsroom reporters and editors in the network’s 39 states explored how a presidential candidate could be replaced on ballots — should the nominee drop out or become unable to continue their campaign following the party conventions.

While there were wildly varying answers, and some states won’t even contemplate the possibility, numerous officials pointed to the Electoral College process.

So how would this work if such a scenario were to unfold? It would be good to have an answer prepared in advance and that's particularly true when both of the leading candidates are of an advanced age. We've always lived with the possibility that a candidate could pass away after the ballots were printed or even after voting has begun, though it's never happened yet. We would still be left in the same boat.

Not all election officials agree, but at least some of them, including the Louisiana Deputy Secretary of State point out that people don't actually vote for the candidate of their choice. They're actually voting for the electors designated to vote for the candidate in the Electoral College. Let's say that Biden withdraws after the convention and the Democrats somehow coronate Kamala Harris or Gavin Newsome as his replacement. (Without anyone having cast a single vote for either in the primary.) Under this theory, Biden's electors could simply cast their vote for someone else, presumably the replacement Democratic candidate.

That theory drags us into some seriously uncertain territory, however. If we blithely accept the idea that the electors are free to vote for someone other than the person receiving the most support from the voters of their state, what 's to stop them from fomenting a revolt in December and selecting someone who wasn't even on the ballot? 270 people in a country with a population of well over 300 million could get together and essentially name anyone they please as the next president. That person would then be free to name anyone they wish as their "running mate" and install them as the Vice President.

Of course, the reality is that this has always been a possibility and the Founders, for all their wisdom, failed to build any sort of insurance policy against this when penning the Constitution. Most states have laws on the books dealing with so-called "faithless electors," but those laws don't have very sharp teeth. The individual states' election laws don't regulate the electors' actions. Some impose fines for faithless votes, but the electors remain free to simply pay the fines and vote as they choose anyway. So there doesn't seem to be any sort of clearly defined answer to what could turn into a serious mess. The other possibility (more like a probability) is that if Biden drops out late in the process and these questions arise, a flurry of lawsuits would be filed around the country no matter who came out on top. In that event, the results of the election would probably land in the lap of the Supreme Court. Given the court's current membership, that might not be the worst thing in the world for Donald Trump.