Paranoia....

[pat]

Part of the difficulty with this administration is it has acted so egregiously in so many ways that even good ideas take on sinister overtones.

The head of a bipartisan elections commission called on the government to create guidelines for canceling or rescheduling elections in the wake of a major terrorist attack.

Enough to set off your liberal radar? After all, the administration would just love to derail elections if it looked like Bush was going to lose....

Except for one problem. What the commissioner is recommending is a damned good idea. Such a good idea, as a matter of fact, that I am somewhat appalled that this is only just being discussed now and not much sooner.

I don't know about you, but I *do* want guidelines in place. I *do* want it spelled out exactly under what conditions elections can be called off. I *do* want time limits for rescheduling elections written into law. The worst thing I can think of would be for no guidelines to be in place, and the administration being able to ram through a cancellation or significant postponement of elections in the wake of a terrorist incident.

"Look at the possibilities. If the federal government were to cancel an election or suspend an election, it has tremendous political implications. If the federal government chose not to suspend an election it has political implications," said Soaries, a Republican and former secretary of state of New Jersey.

"Who makes the call, under what circumstances is the call made, what are the constitutional implications?" he said. "I think we have to err on the side of transparency to protect the voting rights of the country."

Exactly.

Comments

Also...

[patgreene.livejournal.com]

Regarding 1864, at that time we were at war with ourselves, true. But the Confederacy had not yes surrendered, and only individuals in the Union states would have been voting. During 1864, all of the fighting of the war was taking place in Confederate states. Arguably, the residents of border states might have been effected to some degree, but there would not have been any active hostilities which would have prevented access to the polls. True, the Union military might not have voted, but in that case it would have been no different than any other war. In the case of a major attack on a U.S. city, there might be significant obstacles to residents of the affected areas actually getting to the polls.

A more interesting case would be the War of 1812, but even there I believe in 1812 the war was mainly a naval one confined to the Great Lakes region. D.C. was not invaded until 1814.