95 official, 3 unofficial, 2 undecided, what if?

OK, got your attention. I’m talking about the US Senate. The 111th Congress convenes on January 6, 2009, just 51 days from now. And at this time, only 95 of the Senators are known for certain.

In Illinois, a successor for President Elect Barack Obama has to be named, and in all likelihood 51 days is plenty of time for this to happen.

In Delaware a similar situation exists, where Vice President elect Joe Biden still needs to resign his seat and be replaced, but again with 51 days, this is unlikley to be a problem.

Third unofficial seat is Alaska where all but 2,500 votes have now been counted, and Mark Begich holds a 3,724 vote lead (or 1.1%) over convicted Felon Ted Stevens. Begich has declared victory, but Stevens has not yet conceded, the vote will not be certified until the week of December 1, and Stevens has 5 days from that point to request a recount, albeit at his own expense as the result is not within half a percentage point. Until Stevens concedes, it’s not technically over.

Fourth we have Georgia where Saxby Chamblis received more votes than Democratic challenger Jim Martin, but did not receive over 50% of the vote, which means by state law there will be a runoff election on December 2. No one can really say how this one will go, the best analysis I’ve seen is that it really depends on how energized the voters are and how good the get out the vote machine is. This one could end up being close, taking a lot of time to count, and then being within the margin for a recount, one which wouldn’t even start until a couple weeks before the next Congress is seated. There could easily be no clear winner by 1/6/09 here.

The fifth one is my home state of Minnesota, where the final tally today was Coleman ahead of Franken by 215 votes. But most are saying that Franken will probably prevail in the recount, the Secretary of State says it will be mid-December before the recount is completed, and that is if there aren’t any lawsuits, which judging by how litigious both sides have been over the last 2 weeks is highly unlikely. That means we also may not know by 1/6/09 who will be representing Minnesota.

Which brings me to my question. If for any reason whatsoever in any one of these 5 cases, but particularly in the last 3, we don’t have an undisputed victor by 1/6/09, what happens to that seat? Does it sit vacant until the victor claims it? Does the incumbent fill it? Does the person who was ahead in the last count fill it? Do the candidates share it?