Such guidelines do not currently exist, said DeForest B. Soaries, head of the voting panel.
Soaries was appointed to the federal Election Assistance Commission last year by President Bush. Soaries said he wrote to National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice and Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge in April to raise the concerns.
--snip--
Events in Spain, where a terrorist attack shortly before the March election possibly influenced its outcome, show the need for a process to deal with terrorists threatening or interrupting the Nov. 2 presidential election in America, he said.
What's the word I'm looking for here? It's on the tip of my tongue... Oh, yeah, "AAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!"
Seriously, I can see having some kind of a plan in place in case the actual election is disrupted, i.e. some polling places are blown up or something. To my mind, the plan would be fairly simple: allow people in that precinct to vote later, and as soon as possible. So if an attack literally prevents significant numbers of people from voting, those people and those people only would be allowed the chance to cast their votes at another time or in a different place.
What I'm afraid of is that they're going to try to come up with some plan for what to do if, say, there is a major terrorist attack a day or a week before the election. The reference to Spain here is very disturbing. If there is a major attack on the U.S. in the days before the election, and it influences people's votes, that is not some kind of subversion of democracy -- it is democracy. The events going on in the world -- yes, even including those that happen very close to an election -- are relevant to our choices and should by all means be taken into account. Considering these events does not, I repeat does not, mean that the terrorists have won.
What's next? The stock market crashes right before the election and the administration says, "Hey, we're going to postpone the election until this thing settles down a little bit, because, you know, we don't want this event to reflect on us."
Say it with me now... "AAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!"
