Say You Want an Election? Maybe Not.

[Jeff Corey]

Tom Ridge is making scarey noises about postponing the election if there is a terrorist attack.
Is the plan to postpone until the terrorist threat is gone?
That could be decades.

 

[aerocontrols]

According to my weekly neocon joo-beam telegram, the plan is merely to postpone the election until Ariel Sharon is in charge of the UN.

 

[Phrost]

Doesn't the Electoral College vote regardless of whether or not there's an actual election?

I swear I've read that somewhere.

 

[LostAngeles]

...If so, I need to be re-educated in American Government.

It always seemed that if the people of the state vote one way, the electoral votes of that state go the same way, thusly the electoral college is dependant upon the popular vote of each individual state. Thusly the 2000 mess, where Gore supposedly won the overall popular vote, but because Bush won FL, he had the electoral advantage and won.

 

[LostAngeles]

According to my weekly neocon joo-beam telegram, the plan is merely to postpone the election until Ariel Sharon is in charge of the UN.

Is that like The Gay Agenda?

 

[Phrost]

...If so, I need to be re-educated in American Government.

It always seemed that if the people of the state vote one way, the electoral votes of that state go the same way, thusly the electoral college is dependant upon the popular vote of each individual state. Thusly the 2000 mess, where Gore supposedly won the overall popular vote, but because Bush won FL, he had the electoral advantage and won.

Yeah, but I thought that the electoral college had a mandate to meet and then decide where to put the votes, which wasn't always required to be the popular candidate as a sort of safety check in the system.

Bleh, guess I'll google it.

 

[Phrost]

From "Howstuffworks.com"

...On the Monday following the second Wednesday in December, the electors of each state meet in their respective state capitals to officially cast their votes for president and vice president. These votes are then sealed and sent to the president of the Senate, who on Jan. 6 opens and reads the votes in the presence of both houses of Congress. The winner is sworn into office at noon Jan. 20. Most of the time, electors cast their votes for the candidate who has received the most votes in that particular state. However, there have been times when electors have voted contrary to the people's decision, which is entirely legal...


Don't have any info on the EC 'voting' without a popular vote being taken.

 

[aerocontrols]

Is that like The Gay Agenda?

Probably.

 

[zakur]

U.S.: No plan to postpone election

WASHINGTON — Federal officials said Monday that they have taken no steps toward changing the date for the Nov. 2 presidential election if a terrorist attack should occur around that time.

[...]

Newsweek reported Sunday that U.S. counterterrorism officials are reviewing a proposal that provides for postponing the elections in the event of an attack. But Brian Roehrkasse, a spokesman for Ridge, said he was “unaware of any efforts to make plans for postponing the election.”

He said the department is working on issues involving how to secure polling places. But how to deal with delaying a constitutionally set Election Day is a “legal issue not within the department’s purview,” he added. The Justice Department has not tackled the issue either, an official there said.

On CNN, President Bush’s national security adviser Condoleezza Rice said, “Let me just be very clear: I don’t know where the idea that there might be some postponement of elections comes from.”

 

[LostAngeles]

On CNN, President Bush’s national security adviser Condoleezza Rice said, “Let me just be very clear: I don’t know where the idea that there might be some postponement of elections comes from.”

I do, Condi.

From the guy in charge of elections who asked Ridge if there was a terrorist attack, does he have the power to postpone the election.

To think, my boyfriend's got the hots for you... tch.

 

[zakur]

Don't have any info on the EC 'voting' without a popular vote being taken.

Since the Electors (which make up the EC) are decided by the popular vote, I don't see how that would be possible at all.

 

[Phrost]

I don't either, but somewhere along the way I got that impression that it was due to their role as a 'check' in the election process.

 

[shanek]

Doesn't the Electoral College vote regardless of whether or not there's an actual election?

I swear I've read that somewhere.

If so, it wasn't the Constitution. Anywho, the idea of suspending elections frightens the bejeezus out of me, and it should everyone else, too.

All hail King George III, dictator for life!

(After all, the "national emergency" behind the Great Depression is still going on and we're even still paying the tax on the Spanish-American War. "Oh, just another year or two, until the threat's over, and then we PROMISE we'll have the elections then!)

 

[shanek]

Yeah, but I thought that the electoral college had a mandate to meet and then decide where to put the votes, which wasn't always required to be the popular candidate as a sort of safety check in the system.

But ya gotta vote for the electors, and that's actually what we do on Nov. 2.

 

[The Central Scrutinizer]

It always seemed that if the people of the state vote one way, the electoral votes of that state go the same way, thusly the electoral college is dependant upon the popular vote of each individual state. Thusly the 2000 mess, where Gore supposedly won the overall popular vote, but because Bush won FL, he had the electoral advantage and won.

IIRC, the electors must follow the vote by law in some states, but not all. So in those others they can vote however they want.

 

[Dorian Gray]

If they postpone the elections
1) The terrorists have won
2) Possible civil war may erupt.

 

[jj]

If they postpone the elections
1) The terrorists have won
2) Possible civil war may erupt.

The terrorists have already won. We gave up freedom for safety to no effect. Anyone who thinks that the 'efforts' of the government are having any effect here is simply foolish. The 911 report makes it clear, the terrorists got lucky about 4 times at 4 different flights, and people didn't do their jobs. There's nothing to keep that from happening again, and all of the legalized harrassment in the world can not prevent it, none the less, we can now be imprisioned indefinately without Habeas any time the government wants, all they have to do is imagine a reason. There is no recourse to this imagining.

We see the extension in suppression of political speech that's happening around political rallys, as well, wherein people are dishonestly, unconstitutionally penalized for exercising their right to political speech, or at least in one case, for no reason at all other than they don't support the right candidate. Being jailed because you don't support a given candidate is what was held up to us by the last great group of scaremongers headed up by Senator Joe McCarthy, I wonder how he would feel about this bunch, here?

Another example:

http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2004-07/26/content_1648717.htm

We see the discussion about the guy jailed over the fingerprint mismatch here, as well.

I would not be the least bit surprised if an excuse to delay the election was manufactured, especially if it looks like Bush is behind. I'm not sure if this is a coup in progress, or if the coup already happened in Florida.

 

[BPSCG]

From the guy in charge of elections

Who might that be?

who asked Ridge if there was a terrorist attack, does he have the power to postpone the election.

You have a citation for this, of course...

There will not be any postponement of the election.

There was no postponement in 1864, in the middle of the Civil War, although there were certainly rumors that there would be. Lincoln would have no part of it, and as late as August, convinced he was headed for defeat, had his entire cabinet sign a letter swearing they would cooperate with the new McClellan administration.

When I was in college (plain old, not electoral) there were rumors that Nixon had commissioned the Rand Corporation to do a survey of people's attitudes toward the idea of postponing (or cancelling, I forget which) the 1972 election. There were dark warnings that Nixon was going to set up a police state, martial law, blah blah blah. This was during the Viet Nam war, when every conspiracy theory was true. The whole business struck me, at the time, as being just an attempt by the Nixon haters (every bit as virulent as today's Bush haters) to throw as much mud at their enemy as they could.

The 2004 version strikes me as much the same thing.

 

[jj]

The 2004 version strikes me as much the same thing.

Nixon had not abridged the constitution, constructed an internal police force, or won an election as questionably as 'W'.

Yes, he certainly did cheat in the second election, which was uttelry idiotic, since he won without any real effort, and would have even if he'd had the sense not to act on his paranoia.

 

[BPSCG]

Nixon had not abridged the constitution, constructed an internal police force, or won an election as questionably as 'W'.

As a matter of fact, he was accused of ALL of those things, and more; don't forget, he won election over Hubert Humphrey in 1968 in a squeaker.