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Never before has the Presidential line of succession been exhausted so far in SimDemocracy history. Previously having been Secretary of State, Tripod has accepted the Presidency after nobody else above them in the line of succession decided to take themselves upon the job.
The Supreme Court recently published a ruling invalidating the appointment of Pigeon to Vice President on the grounds that the Constitution required appointments of the Vice President to undergo Senate confirmation, which Pigeon's didn't. The office was empty due to (not really) VP Pigeon ascending to the Presidency after President Birdish becoming incacapitated (muted for the crime of contempt of court). This left the Office of the President fully vacant, with there neither being a President nor a Vice President.
Usually, the Presidency would fall to the Speaker of the Senate in this case, but considering that the Senate has failed to elect a Speaker for over a week now, that was obviously impossible. The chamber is still divided on whether to appoint Lyoko or Notcom as its head even after half of its term has already passed.
In this extreme case, the Constitution states that the most senior Cabinet member shall assume the office of Acting President, something that might be a bit surprising considering that Tripod only got appointed to the post of Secretary of State a few days ago. But it is true that everyone else above them in the line of succession was incacapitateed or at least otherwise unable to fulfill the duties of the President, for example the Department of Expansion is currently being run by a caretaker Acting Secretary without a proper leader, and the SimDemocracy Armed Forces are run by a Secretary who hasn't sent a message on the server for at least a week.
Thus, Tripod became President of SimDemocracy. What will happen after the appointment of Vice President Pigeon is made legal by the Senate confirming it is still unclear, but considering that there are new elections in just a few days, we can hope that this chaos was simply temporary.