Posted on 07/13/2004 6:21:35 PM PDT by wagglebee
WASHINGTON (AP) - The head of a new federal voting commission suggested to congressional leaders that there should be a process for canceling or rescheduling an election interrupted by terrorism, but national security adviser Condoleezza Rice said no such plan is being considered by the administration.
Federal officials warned last week that intelligence indicates al-Qaida wants to attack the United States to disrupt the upcoming elections.
"There does not appear to be a clear process in place to suspend or reschedule voting during an election if there is a major terrorist attack," DeForest B. Soaries, chairman of the U.S. Election Assistance Commission, wrote in a letter Monday to Republican and Democratic leaders in the House and Senate. The Associated Press obtained a copy of the one-page letter.
Rice said the Bush administration, while concerned about the impact of terrorism, is not thinking of postponing the elections.
"We've had elections in this country when we were at war, even when we were in civil war. And we should have the elections on time. That's the view of the president, that's the view of the administration," Rice told CNN on Monday.
Soaries also sent lawmakers copies of an earlier letter he wrote to Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge. In that letter, dated June 25, Soaries noted that Sept. 11, 2001, fell on Election Day in New York and state officials delayed voting until later that month. He wrote that no federal agency has the statutory authority to cancel or reschedule a federal election.
Soaries also expressed concern in the earlier letter that increased Election Day security could intimidate some voters, highlighting the need for communication between security officials and election administrators. He raised that issue again in his letter to lawmakers.
Soaries said Monday he was scheduled to meet early next week with Homeland Security officials to discuss the issues.
The Help America Vote Act of 2002 created the Election Assistance Commission.
Now hopefully the media will shut up with their insane attempts to create a crisis.
Maybe Bush should tell these officials that we are safer from terrorism than when he got elected.
No problem, just delay the election. The government already seems to believe that it can violate the Constitution for reasons of immediate expediency, so why not the elections too?
In early 1864 Lincoln felt he was unlikely to win re-election, the war had not yet been decided. Despite this fact, the Republicans unanimously renominated Lincoln. The Democrats nominated General McClellan. The platform of the Democratic party called for a cease-fire. Between the Democratic convention and the election, there were spectacular Union victories, including Sherman's capture of Atlanta. McClellan repudiated the Democratic platform, but Lincoln won overwhelmingly.
(source)
Better not to have a plan, right dems?
Spoken like someone who was not in New York on election day September 11, 2001
Article II, section 1; "The Congress may determine the Time of chusing the Electors, and the Day on which they shall give their Votes; which Day shall be the same throughout the United States."
Notice that the paragraph ends with a PERIOD.
There is nothing about a federal "voting commission", nothing about the Administration.
All due respect to Dr. Rice, but ANY discussion by executive branch officials about ANY interference in the organic act of the People now scheduled by Our representatives to occur on November 2, 2004 is seditious at the least.
If George Bush or any of his appointees pretends to the power implied in these discussions, he should be impeached, and if he be not impeached he should be arrested by a military commission for treason and for seditious conspiracy to overthrow the government.
The chusing of electors for President and Vice President is an act of the sovereign in this land, and has nothing-NOTHING, NOTHING, NOTHING-to do with the present tenants of the executive branch.
HANDS OFF.
9/11 was an election day? News to me.
People voting before work may have saved their lives.
The election was rescheduled.
The primary elections were resheduled for two weeks after, if I remember correctly.
Nope. This is still being flogged all across the airwaves. Crimeny, even Rush fell for it. It's just a notion to arouse the far left and suppress the far right.
I think that you are going a bit overboard.
In all of this discussion, the one thing that the media has not mentioned is that, as you stated, "which Day shall be the same throughout the United States".
What that means is that if on election day, one city, or several cities may have their elections disrupted, the voting will go on without them. Do the people understand that? I doubt it, and Big Media isn't doing anything to inform them. They need to know that.
Everything else that you mentioned can and could be changed by the Congress who - "may determine the Time of chusing the Electors, and the Day on which they shall give their Votes".
As usual, Big Media has made a mountain out of a mole hill. And so have you.
That refers to the Electoral College voting ("the Day on which they shall give their Votes")--they do that in mid-December. The day for choosing the electors is whenever Congress says it is (that's the "The Congress may determine the Time of chusing the Electors" part). Indeed, because it says Congress can choose the "time," not the "day," they could make voting a week-long activity or even (if you agree that such things can be delegated to the executive branch) make it possible to reschedule the election if the authorities believe it is sufficiently disrupted on Election Day.
The 9/11 analogy is a good one--if we had (God forbid) another 9/11 on 11/2 this year, would we really want the terrorists to be able to disenfranchise a whole city?
Rice was right to say that there is no plan to do this and throw water on the whole idea. But you are right, I would have preferred a more definitive statement that acknowledged that the President in no way had the authority to re-schedule elections and that Election Day must occur on time, Hell or high water.
BTW, the two-week delay in the NYC primary is widely credited with derailing the candidacy of Fernando Ferrer, making Mark Greene the Democratic nominee. Michael Bloomberg cleaned Greenes clock in November, but would probably lost to Ferrer. Changing the 9/11 primary probably changed the outcome of the Mayoral election in NYC.
I kind of like Mayor Mike, so I'm pretty happy with the way things worked out. But it makes me nervous, nonetheless.
Primaries aren't a constitutional matter, they are an invention of the parties.
Not a constitutionally governed election.
My liberal daughter and I were discussing this. She suggested that if something did happen, the time for voting could be extended nationwide, for example a 72 hour window for voting. Best idea I've heard yet.
LOL! If that's the case then every Congresscritter and the President should be impeached for violating the 2nd Amendment. The Constitution in its originality is gone, my friend.
the government should keep saying that the election will not be postponed for ANY reason. any other position will just reward terrorists for disrupting the election.
and that's not just al qaeda--think of all the home-grown nutty american potential terrorists who might be encouraged by the idea that they could disrupt an election.
i went to graduate school at the state university of NY at stony brook. the undergrad students would routinely call in bomb threats to get exams cancelled.
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