There are events we should plan for, and there are events which we cannot plan for. This is not something we need to have a plan for:
(The new chairman of the US Election Assistance Commission is Rev. DeForest B. Soaries, Jr. Senior Pastor of First Baptist Church of Lincoln Gardens in Somerset, New Jersey and former New Jersey Secretary of State.)
Unless the terrorist strikes are so pervasive and so widepread that they physically disrupt elections nationwide, a localized terrorist strike shouldn’t be a single point of failure for our democracy. Elections were neither suspended nor cancelled during the Civil War, when there were attacks and battles raging on US soil, the elections were not cancelled.
Despite the horror of a terrorist attack in one city, its effect on the process of voting in other parts of the country are comparable to that of a natural disaster. Would we consider cancelling elections across the country if there were a major earthquake in Los Angeles on Election Day? What about a tornado in Kansas City the day before? Or a blackout in Cleveland two days earlier? A horrendous blizzard in Buffalo the previous weekend?
If the answer is “no”, then maybe there are other factors here than simple disaster preparedness. Maybe it has to do with this paragraph:
There are a lot of factors which influence the outcome of an election, including the economy, military actions, perceived incompetence of the Commander in Chief, disgust at being lied to at every turn for four years; cancelling an election because of influences is just another step on the road desceding to martial law and dictatorship.
All the terrorists have to do is “threaten” the elections and we should have a plan for cancelling or delaying the vote. After all, a terrorist attack in Spain brought about the wrong outcome…
