Sorry for missing this. But you have to admit that there is NEVER a time when EVERYONE who wants to vote is able to do so. If there’s a blizzard in ND, we sort of expect those hardy folk who live there to be able to deal with it. If there is a terror attack somewhere, it is not unreasonable for everyone across the entire country to be concerned and perhaps decide to alter their plans.
But let’s put this in perspective. I would not be in favor of changing anything unless the terror attack was large and very close to election day (with a few days). I’d grab my tin foil hat with the best of them if the administration suggested delaying the election for a terror attack that might happen a month before the election. The important thing is that we have the discussion now and get the parameters on the table, rather than wait until it’s too late to have a rational discussion.
I like the idea of absentee ballots during such a crisis. It is equally applicable to snowstorms, flooding, terrorist attacks, flu epidemics, and menacing children storming voting booths with wiffle ball bats and chewing gum. The local election groups could decide if absentee balloting was a good idea, and let the public know. Anyone see anything terribly wrong with this?
But you didn’t have Guliani plotting to postpone the elction before a terror attack occurred. Moreover, the Bush regime already has a precedent of illegal manipulation of the electoral procees, so suspcions is not unwarranted.
Given that Bush has placed the entire basis of his rule on his ability to thwart terrorism, I think a terror attack would work against, not for him.
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The Spanish held their election 3 days after the Madrid bombings, and even NYC held their primary 2 weeks after 9/11. In 1814, the US held national mid-term elections when the British had taken and burned the capitol! We held presidential elections in the middle of the Civil War! That the Bush regime is actively investigating pretexts for postponing the elections (“indefinitely” would be my guess) should be viewed with grave suspicion.
manhattan, I can’t even begin to imagine how terrifying the press coverage would be if, say, my state of Ohio was for some reason the state that held ‘delayed’ elections.
Think about it. The results from 49 states are in. The election is close and suddenly the entire weight of the election rides on Ohio. We’d have a politician-density here of 1000 per square kilometer. Not to mention the press! Oofah! It’d make Florida-2000 look like a media lemonade stand by comparison.
Even if you postulated that we could withhold the results from the other non-delayed states it would be 99%+ certain to leak (or portions would). That’s the sort of story that even the NYT and NPR would pay money for.
Sure, I’ll stipulate that. But please understand my context for the original comment – I was responding to DMC’s post, which I thought made an excellent point: if the concern is that a terrorist attack could sway the election, but there hasn’t been enough disruption to keep people from the polls, then, well, tough shit: we’re having the election as scheduled.
I think it’s extremely important to draw a very bright line regarding exactly what circumstances could cause a postponement of an election. If the machinery of state is functioning and people can travel to the polls, then there’s no need for a delay. Contrariwise, if there’s significent disruption, especially if there’s an area where voters couldn’t vote in significent numbers, then a delay is reasonable.
I’d submit to you that the Spain bombings fall into the former category – the elections were held, and voter turnout was 77 percent! 9/11 falls into the latter category: NYC and DC were in chaos, air travel was shut down, people were afraid to leave thier homes; if elections were less than a week away, a short – very short, perhaps a few days – postponement seems reasonable.
It sounds like we’re on more or less the same page. Fine, lets discuss it, but I’d move cautiously and deliberately, and view any proposal with a microscope.
Well, take away the word “authoritarian,” and there are a number of Repub leaders who have been quite open about wanting to manufacture a permanent Republican majority, i.e. a de facto one-party government.
I seen reason to take away the wors" authoritarian" since the Repub leadership has been equally open that the law is what they say it is and that civil liberties are optional.
Given the untrustworthiness of the current administration, we must consider the possibity that election postponement contigencies will be abused by the executive branch for political gain.
One might hope that if the legislative branch were given the sole power to delay an election by, say, majority vote, checks and balances would cancel out partisan manipulation. However, given the successful unified front created by the neocon movement, I’m not sure even that mechanism should be trusted. Perhaps the hurdle must be a 2/3 majority in both the House and the Senate; but even then, opposition legislators might feel intimidated by the more jingoistic elements of American society (as we saw leading up to GWII), and would vote so as to avoid the political costs incurred by appearing to be “weak on terror”.
In an ideal world, perhaps the SCOTUS could be given such power, but again, looking at the 2000 election decision, partisanship and ideology clearly rule over dispassionate interpretation of law. Hence, we can’t trust the SCOTUS.
While on the surface a delayed-election contingency seems sensible, I simply have no confidence that any branch of govt. could implement such a contingency in a way that isn’t tainted by politics. Hence, I don’t think pursuing such a contingency is wise. There’s simply too many possible means of, and motivations for, abuse, which I suspect both Republicans and Democrats would be liable to exploit.
It seems far more sensible to enhance security during the elections, and bolster the present system so as to make it more robust and less easy to be disturbed by acts of terrorism. This might have the dual benefit of making the entire system better even when there is no terrorist crisis. The need for some sort of enhancement was amply demonstrated in the 2000 election. Perhaps we can use the terrorist threat to motivate our leaders to make the improvements to our electoral machinery that need desperately to be made in any eventuality.
Cite(s)? I’ll give you a bit of leeway on your first point, and I’ll even concide the second, however show me where children were deliberately tortured, prove to me that there is official encouragement to threaten dissent, and show me one person charged with treason solely based on criticism of policy.
It seems to me that the main issue here is the credibility of a given election, and that goes for both sides. For every leftist who distrusts the current administration and their well-documented skills at abusing the electoral process, there’s a rightist who views what happened in Spain as an Al Qaida victory that will encourage similar attacks in the future.
Instead of postponing an election, or requiring the paranoid among us to register for absentee ballots, I submit that authorities may, under a framework yet to be determined, extend an election. Keep the voting booths open for a week or two, starting on November 2. That gives people time to digest the ramifications of the hypothetical terrorist attack, and still have time to vote with something resembling a clear head.
So in the case of the Madrid bombings, the attack happened three days before the election. Fine. Let’s say the same thing happened here, a terrorist attack on October 30. Open the booths as usual on election day–that sends one message right there. Suspend all campaigning (not that anyone would have purchased ad buys for after election day, anyways, and in practical terms I doubt that would be possible on such short notice). Put the word out that voting booths will stay open for X number of days (maybe on a reduced schedule, like 4-9pm) while people sift through the news reports of the bombings, and let them decide what to do. And also allow registered voters to come into precinct HQ and get and submit absentee ballots during these extended hours.
One issue might be registered voters. Credibility would be lost if popular outrage results in a tidal wave of support for one candidate from those who weren’t going to vote anyways. This scenario assumes the terrorist event occurs between the registration deadline and the scheduled election day. There may be some practical issues here–does every state require registering before an election? I dunno, somebody fill me in (although it seems like there is a nationwide movement to tidy up voter registration rolls, with attendant abuses on both sides of the political spectrum).
Otherwise, if somebody out there wants to run with this, feel free to make some phone calls on my behalf. Gotta go earn a paycheck.
And Ashcroft’s “phantoms of lost liberties” speech.
And let’s not forget the USA PATRIOT Act, in which Section 215 allows the government to access books and Internet records without a warrant and in which the record holders can’t divulge that there was a search at all.
And finally
I never said anyone was charged with treason, so don’t deliberately misquote my posts again. I said that the government and its supporters equatecriticism of policy with treason, as in Ann Coulter, Sean Hannity, Bill O’ Reilly and other mouthpieces for the Bush regime who call all liberals traitors and urge the suppression of dissent, as in the GOP-funded group that attempted to keep Fahrenheit 9/11 out of theaters, as in the repeated pronoucements from government stooges that criticizing the war gives comfort to our enemies.
But this has been discussed in other threads, so let’s not hijack this one any longer. You want to discuss the crimes of the Bush regime, open a new thread. Let’s stick to the elections in this one.
Most states already have existing law that applies to this issue; it is a generally settled issue in most states that a court of general jurisdiction in a state has the power to issue writs extending polling times or ordering a special election in the event that a scheduled election is so compromised (by whatever means) that it does not represent a fair election. I would therefore think that it’s just a matter of getting a judge in whatever districts are affected by terrorist activity to issue the appropriate writ, should terrorist activity occur.
I also don’t understand why we have to close the polls in Iowa because of a terrorist threat in Florida; just let Iowa (and everyone else) vote and have a delayed election in Florida. I’m not even sure that federal legislation is even required here.
What worries me is that we will see DHS declare a “heightened alert level” two days before the election, and the election postponed out of an ill-quantified “concern for possible terrorist activity”. There’s already plenty of reason to suspect the Administration of manipulating terrorism-related intelligence and the “threat level” for political purposes.
Absolutely not. We vote on November 2, come hell or high water. Period. End of story. This is America, goddamnit!
And if it were the bastard love child of Bill Clinton, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, and Thomas Jefferson in office proposing that we suspend or delay elections, I’d say the same thing. If we managed to vote in November 1864, we can do it any time.
Agreed. If we expect people in places like Iraq or Afghanistan to vote in elections where the very act could cost them their lives, then we had damn well better drag ourselves to the polls on Nov. 2 under any circumstances. Have we become so weak that an “Orange Alert” will keep us from leaving our homes to go cast a ballot? If so, we don’t deserve the democracy we have.
Playing with the election schedule means inviting political manipulation. Plus, delaying the election because of vague threats is spineless and a capitulation to terrorists. If we’re in the land of the free and home of the brave, we better act like it.
I think the problem is this: Suppose there is a terror attack in Florida, and the election there is postponed. The rest of the country votes as scheduled, and Bush wins. Florida then votes, and Bush wins there also. Or, flip it and say Kerry wins on both fronts. We already have issues with people not voting because the media calls the election early. Wouldn’t there be issues of “equal protection” or other concerns about fairness? Do we really need 4 more years of a contested election?
Are you serious? There is no way they could get away with this, even if they wanted to. I’ll wager any amount you want, at any odds that this won’t happen.
Can we see some of this evidence? I assume it’s more than “some people think that maybe…”
I want the tin foil concession at the next DopeFest.
The Bush administration is conspiring to cancel the next elections in the same sense that someone who buys fire insurance is conspiring to commit arson. Planning to deal with the consequences of a dreaded event is rather different from planning to bring the event about.
Some of you are taking the next step beyond distrust into paranoid delusions.
If the elections are cancelled, I hereby promise to renounce my membership in the Republican party, donate a thousand dollars to the Democrats, and dance the Watusi naked with “Impeach Bush” painted on my ass.
And I can bump this thread after the elections and post a big, fat “neener neener” when your paranoid fantasies turn out to be ridiculous.
If you think there’s nothing different about the way some Republicans are trying to create a permanent majority (e.g. willy-nilly alteration of Congressional districts outside of census years, fiddling with voter registration rolls in efforts to disenfranchise predominantly Democratic voters, using extra-constitutional means to manipulate the outcome of elections, demonizing the opposition (as un-American or even treasonous) with an unprecedented ferocity, etc.) than you are the one out of touch with reality.
Even the rhetoric some Repubs use for wanting a permanent majority is out of line with past precedent. In my lifetime, neither party has previously made such an open and bald-faced effort to permanently and maliciously consolidate power, and certainly I can find no historical precedent for many of the present tactics they are using to defeat the Democrats.