The Republican Convention is in July, the Democratic Convention is in August.
So what would happen is all the state delegates would get together and vote on who the new candidate should be.
If they drop out AFTER the nominating convention, then it gets a lot more complicated.
If something happens to the winner of the election after the election, but before the electoral college process, it’s EVEN MORE complicated.
See this fun novel from 1995:
I hope it won awards, if only just for show
There is an additional wrinkle if God exercises His ultimate veto on the winning candidate after the election. The winning candidate doesn’t actually win until the new Congress (on or around Jan 6) counts up the EC votes that were cast in December, and must get a majority of them. In the event that the winning candidate dies before the EC meets, all those electors have to be careful. If they split their votes, and no one candidate achieves the majority, the election for President goes to the House (where each state’s delegation gets a single vote), and VP goes to the Senate. So all the electors would have to coordinate quickly on a replacement . The logical choice is the VP candidate, of course but the coordination still has to happen.
The Electoral Count Reform Act did make some major changes that reduces chaos when the count is taking place:
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It increases the threshold for challenging an Electoral slate to 20% of each House, to eliminate frivolous challenges
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In the event a challenge is upheld and their votes are tossed, it also reduces the amount of EC votes needed to get a majority.
But still doesn’t change the fact that these challenges can occur, and if a EC slate comes in for a candidate who has died it still ultimately leaves it up to Congress to decide what to do. That would seem to be a challenge that could get to the 20% threshold.
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