If Trump Drops Out, The Result Will Be A Horrible Legal Quagmire

Some Republicans are now calling for Trump to drop out.

Well.....
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let’s say that Trump agrees to drop out. Then what? As it turns out, the answer to that is quite complicated, and it hinges upon what 50 different state laws have to say about when Trump makes the decision to leave the race.

Although the presidency is a national job, each state has broad leeway to set procedures governing the presidential election in that state. Many of them enacted laws governing candidates who wish to withdraw from a race which can be quite unforgiving — especially as the election draws nigh. West Virginia, for example, provides that a candidate who wishes to withdraw from an election must file a statement “not later than eighty-four days before the general election,”

So even if Trump wants to remove his name from many states’ ballots, it is unlikely that he will be able to do so.
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Recall that, under the Constitution, voters do not vote directly for presidential candidates. They elect members of the Electoral College who themselves choose the next president. Most states have laws that attempt to bind electors to actually vote for the presidential candidate preferred by the state’s voters, but these bans on so-called “faithless” electors vary in subtle but important ways that could have significant implications if Trump does withdraw from the race.
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even if Trump’s name is removed from the ballot in states like South Carolina or Alabama, the electors may still be bound to vote for Trump if they previously declared their intention to do so. Meanwhile, electors from states with Wyoming-style laws appear to be bound to Trump if Trump’s name appears on the ballot and he wins the most votes, even if Trump has otherwise withdrawn from the race.

But that is, of course, assuming that these faithless elector laws are constitutional. The Twelfth Amendment provides that “the Electors shall meet in their respective states and vote by ballot for President and Vice-President.” That provision can quite plausibly be read to delegate the power to elect a president solely to the discretion of the electors themselves. Though the courts have never needed to resolve this question, it is far from clear that state lawmakers have the power to take this discretion away from members of the Electoral College.

Were Trump to withdraw, in other words, such a withdraw would trigger a morass of state statutes, many of which would yield different results in different states. High stakes litigation would also ensue — with little, if any precedents to guide the litigants and judges — in order to determine how members of the Electoral College should behave. Similar litigation would almost certainly result in state courts, as various state-level officials struggled to determine which name should appear on their ballots.

It would, in other words, be an enormous stimulus package for election lawyers, but a confusing morass for actual voters.

https://thinkprogress.org/if-trump-drops-out-the-result-will-be-a-horrible-legal-quagmire-40c9e4affb66#.t7x5w9mk6

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So much for the simple expediency of Trump dropping out and Pence taking his place.

If he drops out he will remain on the ballot in some states and in other states if he still wins a majority of votes there will be a horrible and expensive legal morass that the state will have to manage and pay for.

Of course the states that vote for Hillary will have none of these problems.