Plan to Reschedule Election Discussed

This seems like an astonishingly bad idea:

U.S. counterterrorism officials are looking at an emergency proposal on the legal steps needed to postpone the November presidential election in case of an attack by al Qaeda, Newsweek reported on Sunday. The magazine cited unnamed sources who told it that the Department of Homeland Security asked the Justice Department last week to review what legal steps would be needed to delay the election if an attack occurred on the day before or the day of the election.
The department was asked to review a letter to [Tom] Ridge from DeForest Soaries, who is the chairman of the new U.S. Election Assistance Commission, the magazine said. In his letter, Soaries pointed out that while New York’s Board of Elections suspended primary elections in New York on the day of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, “the federal government has no agency that has the statutory authority to cancel and reschedule a federal election.”
Soaries wants Ridge to ask Congress to pass legislation giving the government such power, Newsweek reported.

This report will start the propellers spinning on every tinfoil hat in America. But conspiracy fantasies aside, canceling a Presidential election would send the worst possible signal to everyone, not least the American people. Come Hell or high water, the election should proceed on November 2.

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