Final answer:
While not every elected leader must agree to ratify a constitution, typically a supermajority is required to reflect broad consensus. The Framers of the United States Constitution required ratification from nine of the thirteen states. For constitutional amendments in the U.S., a two-thirds supermajority in Congress and ratification by three-quarters of state legislatures or conventions are required.
Step-by-step explanation:
No, not every single elected leader needs to agree on the constitution before it's ratified. The process of ratifying a constitution does not necessarily require unanimous consent but typically requires a supermajority to ensure a broad consensus. For the United States Constitution, Article 7 stipulated that at least nine states needed to ratify the new Constitution before it could become law. This was a strategic decision by the Framers, recognizing that unanimous approval from all thirteen states was improbable.
The requirement of a supermajority is not fixed and can vary depending on the constitutional process of a particular country. In the U.S. Congress, for example, proposing amendments to the Constitution requires a two-thirds supermajority vote from both the House of Representatives and the Senate, followed by ratification of the proposed amendment by three-quarters of the state legislatures or state-ratifying conventions.
This threshold was deliberately set high to ensure that only amendments with significant approval would pass, reflecting a broad consensus across the states and political spectrum.
For ratifying a new constitution or amendments to it, the supermajority is a balance between requiring full consensus, which can be nearly impossible, and a simple majority that may not reflect a substantial agreement.
Supermajority requirements like two-thirds or three-quarters offer robust protection against changes that do not have wide support, but they are not so restrictive that they prevent all change. These thresholds help to ensure that significant changes, such as those to the fundamental law of the land, have thoroughly debated and broadly supported before becoming enshrined in law.