Posted on 07/11/2004 3:10:58 PM PDT by wagglebee
In the Constitution, it is Congress that has the power to set the dates and conditions for federal elections. However, I think in existing election code (legislated by Congress), if I'm correct, there are already provisions for delaying an election if something catastrophic happens that prevents it.
Yes, but realistically, how do we hold an election if all the candidates are dead? Better to have a contingency plan.
Will say this though (and please no flames) if a terror attack turns the election to the democrat party, the terrorists might be surprised by the American response.
For one thing . . there is always a delay between the election and the inauguration.
Beyond that even, I think (hope) even the democrat party would step up and get tough. There was once a solid guy named Truman who knew what to do.
I personally resent the fact that these vermin could change our election plans. This is exactly what they want. If we do not vote on Tuesday November 2nd I will be one pissed off American.
I would have thought that after living under the Soviet nuclear threat for over 50 years, we would already have a contingency plan in place.
So everyone, LIE LIKE A RUG when asked and say you're voting for Kerry. It'll ruin Jean's and the Dems' day when he loses and stick it to AQ when 43 wins.
So, we are attacked on the day of, or a couple days before, and like NY, we postpone the elections a week or two to regroup. We have almost a 3 month cushion between the election and the swearing in. You still would vote for Kerry? Then what, you vote for kerry and he is elected Pres? Man, some of you are way out of sync with reality. I'll bet the dems hope we have an attack near the election, can you say Spain?
Why would we postpone our election? It's crazy. Don't even think about it.
What I was saying is what would happen of Al-Qaeda managed to kill not only the Presidential candidates but both of their running mates. Then we'd have a real problem that couldn't be solved simply by voting for the VP.
If we lose a President, the VP becomes President, and if we lose both a Pres and the VP, THEN the SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE becomes President. You should have had that in Civics class in HS. As for the election, we don't swear in the President until the latter part of January, 2005, so delaying an election is not a big deal unless it goes past January.
If we lost them all, both parties would have to reconvene and select new candidates, and we start over, it is actually quite simple.
Okay, try this scenario;
Al Qaeda sets off three suitcase nukes in three key Republican election districts in Florida the day before the election.
President George W. Bush postpones the elections for two weeks.
LoudRepublicanGirl is "pissed off" at who?
BTW, the vermin do not want to change our "election plans" -- the vermin want to change our election results.
The problem I see with going on with an election if a large majority of a metro area's vote would be affected is that we would hear the whining about "not every vote being counted", etc. etc
So a temporary postponing to allow certain areas to have voting facilities open would seem a wise thing to me.
Or the rest of the country could vote, and then the affected area could vote when their facilities were ready, the result of the vote would just be held up until the affected area/areas had voted (hey, we waited over a month for the results last time, and we do have about a month leeway after the Nov. date).
To make sure that all of the survivors of an al Qaeda attack have a voting machine to use -- that isn't glowing.
You're not being realistic. It's not who's president, it's who's running. If the candidates on both sides are killed in such an attack, elections would have to be postponed.
If they do anything on Election Day, what's to stop them from doing it again on the next day set? Especially if the populace makes it clear we AIN'T Spain? Let's just hold the dang vote. If for some reason the result's skewed by the number of folks who couldn't make it to the polls, personally I think there'd be a lanslide for 43 which would make that point moot, then we could discuss holding another election.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.