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07/12/2004:
"Officials discuss how to delay Election Day"
cnn.comWASHINGTON (CNN) -- U.S. officials have discussed the idea of postponing Election Day in the event of a terrorist attack on or about that day, a Homeland Security Department spokesman said Sunday.
The department has referred questions about the matter to the Department of Justice's Office of Legal Counsel, said spokesman Brian Roehrkasse, confirming a report in this week's editions of Newsweek magazine.
Newsweek said the discussions about whether the November 2 election could be postponed started with a recent letter to Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge from DeForest Soaries Jr., chairman of the U.S. Election Assistance Commission.
The commission was set up after the disputed 2000 presidential vote to help states deal with logistical problems in their elections.
Soaries, who was appointed by President Bush, is a former New Jersey secretary of state and senior pastor of the 7,000-member First Baptist Church of Lincoln Gardens in Somerset.
Newsweek reported that Soaries expressed concern that no federal agency had the authority to postpone an election and asked Ridge to ask Congress to give his commission such power.
Ridge warned Thursday that al Qaeda terrorists were planning a large-scale attack on the United States "in an effort to disrupt the democratic process." (Full story)
Ridge said he had no specific or credible information about threats to the political conventions. The four-day Democratic convention kicks off July 26 in Boston, Massachusetts, and the Republican National Convention begins August 30 in New York City.
Ridge also said the nation's color-coded terrorist threat level would remain at yellow, or elevated.
...the Republican chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, Rep. Christopher Cox of California, said on "Late Edition" that he sees Ridge's request as part of a prudent effort to plan for "doomsday scenarios."
"We don't have any intelligence to suggest that it is going to happen, but we're preparing for all of these contingencies now," Cox said.
Noting that New York election officials were able to postpone their September 11, 2001, primary election after terrorists slammed hijacked planes into the World Trade Center, Cox said "there isn't any body that has that authority to do that for federal elections."
"So what Secretary Ridge has asked the Justice Department to do is, 'Give me a legal memo, tell me what will be necessary. Do we need to go to Congress and get legislation?' " full article
