The Shape of Days

Man, the radicals are going to have a field day with this one. News broke Sunday night that the head of the Election Assistance Commission, a government agency established in the wake of the 2000 election to help states deal with logistical problems, has asked Homeland Security Secretary Ridge to give that body the authority to postpone the November election in the event of a large-scale terrorist attack on or about November 2.

I can hear it already. The conspiracy theorists, the same crowd that’s been saying for three years now that there would be no 2004 election, that democracy as we know it would cease to exist in our country, are going to be swinging from the rafters.

But what are the facts?

Fact 1. September 11, 2001, was the day of a primary election in New York City. That election was postponed in the wake of the terrorist attack.

Fact 2. The bombings in Madrid on March 11, 2004, took place just three days before that country’s general election. The outcome of that election was definitely affected by the bombings, to the tangible benefit of those who carried them out.

Add up these two facts and what do you get? That terrorist attacks can have a dramatic effect on elections, and that postponing an election in the wake of an attack is not unprecedented.

The letter from the head of the EAC to the Department of Homeland Security simply points out that no body or agency would have the authority to postpone the November election if it were prudent to do so. If that nightmare scenario ever arises, doesn’t it make sense that we should have a system in place for dealing with it? We have a system for everything else. Hell, in the wake of 9/11, we even established rules for how to call for special elections in the event that a significant fraction of the Congress are killed in an attack. Doesn’t it make sense to have a system for dealing with an attack on or immediately before election day?

Want more facts? Here’s the doozy: Democracy under the cloud of a terrorist attack is no democracy at all. An election immediately after, or even during, a massive attack on our country wouldn’t be an election. It would be a collective panic attack. Is that something we want to deal with?

To me, it seems obvious that we need to have a system, an established set of procedures, for postponing the general election if it should be necessary. Presumably Congress would have the authority to do so, although without looking into it I’m not sure that’s true. But what if at the time Congress no longer exists as an effective lawmaking body? We live in uncertain times, and we need to consider the worst-case scenario here. If Congress ceases to exist on the morning of November 2, what happens to the election? What happens to the ballots that have already been cast? What happens to the absentee ballots?

We need to have answers to those questions. I hope to God that the radical left—which is increasingly just another name for the left in general, unfortunately—has the sense to look on this as a contingency that must be prepared for instead of responding like it’s a goddamned coup d’etat.

Wanna bet on it?

Update: Don Eyres brings up another good point in a comment over at the Captain’s Quarters: disenfranchisement. What happens if a terrorist attack on election day prevents a significant number of people from getting to the polling place? Would it be proper to let the election go ahead with the certain knowledge that a million (pulled that number out of my ear) votes would go uncounted?

There are implications all over the place.

• Look someplace else
• Ukrainian election do-over in progress
• The 60-day window