The blogosphere is agog today over the reports that our homeland defense czar, Tom Ridge, wants the attorney general, John Ashcroft, to figure out how to "legally" postpone this year's presidential election, should a terror attack make it "necessary."
I wrote about this at length three months ago when the first trial balloons were launched and nothing I've seen since has changed my mind: Postponing this election -- or any other -- is a bad idea on every ground. It's undemocratic. It would open the way to future abuses. And it would give the terrorists the thing they long for: tangible proof that they can disrupt the most fundamental process of representative government – and by extension any other important function of our society.
This is not a message we want to send.
Billmon does some verbal hand-wringing in this post about the perceived advantage a terrorist attack close to election day would give the Bush-Cheney ticket.
"Suppose that one week before election day, the United States is hit by a major terrorist attack - I mean a really big one, like a dirty bomb on the Washington Mall or a liquified gas tanker exploding in the port of a major American city.
"Suppose that on the eve of the attack, national polls and the electoral math both show Kerry-Edwards clinging to a narrow lead over Bush-Cheney, one that appears sufficient, barely, to put the Democrats back in the White House.
"Let's further suppose that a week after the attack, on the eve of the election, those same national polls show an enormous 'rally around the President' effect, one that pushes Bush's approval ratings back towards 80% - not only enough to guarantee Shrub a landslide reelection victory, but also enough to sweep the Republicans to a filibuster-proof majority in the Senate and a 1932 or 1974-sized edge in our Chamber of People's Deputies.
"Under those circumstances, would you want the election to be held as scheduled? Or would you rather it was postponed for a month, until the initial shock had passed and the voters had had a chance to consider whether the administration's incompetence and the relative indifference of the GOP Congress to homeland security needs might not have contributed to the disaster?
"If your answer is yes, you definitely would want the election to go forward on the scheduled day, terrorist attack or no terrorist attack, then I guess you're entitled to regard any legal tampering as an automatic outrage.
"But if your answer is no, you would not want the election to go forward on November 2 under the conditions I have described, then you have to acknowledge that some kind of legal mechanism needs to be created soon to allow someone in a position of national authority to make the call to postpone the election."
I really think this is the wrong way of looking at the question. To begin with, one of the realities of government is that it will use the tools it has. That's the government imperative. I don't think we want, or need, to embark on a search for "emergency legislation" to alter election schedules, which is what DeForest B. Soaries Jr., chairman of the newly created U.S. Election Assistance Commission, is asking the Justice Department to consider. Emergency legislation is frequently bad legislation. And it's a lot easier to enact than to repeal. This would be particularly true of legislation authorizing the postponement (suspension? cancellation?) of elections in times of crisis. After all, as talking heads never tire of telling us, we're in a "war" that could last decades. Some at the right fringe are even calling it World War IV. I, for one, do not want hanging over us for some indeterminate, but lengthy, period the threat of some bureaucrat – or, more likely, some partisan hack (of either party) -- deciding we shouldn't vote because of some perceived or real crisis.
So, if Billmon's nightmare scenario occurs, what should we do. I think the appropriate response is to hold the election anyway. On schedule. Regardless of whether the results agree with my desires. And hope people turn out in record numbers.
If, as the result of some horrific attack, the president thinks an election should be delayed he should step forward and explain his thinking to the American people who, as the estimable pollster Andrew Kohut notes here (free site registration may be required), generally have done a pretty good job of sorting out questions that are crucial for the nation.
We also should remember that elections at all levels are regularly influenced by external events. That's reality. It's really quite impossible to forecast with any certainty the specific effect of such events on an election. As Jesse Taylor at Pandagon writes, "So then, we get to the real question - is this a wise idea? I say no - largely because anything that alters the election date makes sure to change the way that the electorate perceives the election. … They [al-Qaeda] want us to be fearful and distrustful of the basic avenues of American life. They want us to be afraid to go into buildings for work, to get on trains, to go to the polling place. The issue shouldn't be when we have elections in this scenario, but instead making sure that people vote, no matter what happens. That should be the debate here - not when we vote, but how we get people to vote, no matter the candidate, to show al-Qaeda that they can't shake our faith in our democratic system."
I'll conclude, as I did in my earlier post, with Abraham Lincoln's advice about the presidential election of 1864, held in the midst of the Civil War:
"We can not have free government without elections; and if the rebellion could force us to forego, or postpone a national election it might fairly claim to have already conquered and ruined us. … the election, along with its incidental, and undesirable strife, has done good too. It has demonstrated that a people's government can sustain a national election, in the midst of a great civil war. Until now it has not been known to the world that this was a possibility."
Let's preserve that possibility – for ourselves and, perhaps by example, for others.
Note: Blogger Joe Gandelman at The Moderate Voice has a huge roundup of links on this subject.
Snark: I wonder how this would-be election tamperer would look in one of those Chanel suits popularized by this one. Nah. More the Brooks Brothers type, I guess.
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