One person should not be able to choose the New York governor, the executive for the tenth largest economy in the world. And yet, in New York, this remains a distinct possibility, considering how the state replaces its lieutenant governor when there is a vacancy.

Currently, the governor has unilateral power to appoint a replacement lieutenant governor should the office become vacant. If something happens to the governor in between such an appointment and the next gubernatorial election, an unelected lieutenant governor would assume the governorship. This unilateral power does not come from the state constitution, nor was it given to the governor by the people via referendum. Rather, it derives from a judicial interpretation of a statute during litigation related to the 2009 leadership crisis, a political dispute that prevented the state Senate from functioning for a month.