CNN.com - Officials discuss how to delay Election Day
ABCNews.com: Officials Want Election Rescheduling Rules
MSNBC - Exclusive: Election Day Worries
CBS News | Pondering An Election Day Delay

I can't believe it, I just can't believe that ANYONE would even CONSIDER the possibility of delaying the election. Ok, now normally I'm a "take the blows as they come" kind of person, but this is way beyond my limit.

Consider the possibility that a person got into office, (And no, I'm not trying to insinuate anything, this is intended purely as a hypothetical exercise.) that had some kind of agenda that just couldn't be done if they weren't president. Now consider the options that he would have at his disposal if there was a clause allowing the election to be rescheduled in the event of a terrorist attack. Keep in mind, the president is a human just like us, and worse yet, a human with a lot of power. What if that president where to arrange for a terrorist attack on election day. It could be reasonably made such that he was president indefinitely.

Now, this is an obvious extreme case, and not really fair. But the use of such a clause, even to just delay the election in hopes of creating a biased condition during the voting process is extremely easy. And who would be the person with the power to make this decision? Would it be vested in one man? Or would the act require an act of congress to activate?

Oddly enough, I can see why such a clause would be necessary, but I don't see how it would be possible to implement it in a safe way. Because of this, I think it's in the better interest of the American people to not have such a clause. The risk for abuse is far too great. If a Madrid bombing like event where to sway the election unfairly, it really wouldn't be any different than having a kin relative of one of the canidates decide when to stop counting the votes now would it?




- posted by Jim The Cactus @ 7/12/2004 04:56:44 PM | Permalink | (4) Comments. Add your own!