![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Sensible Idea
Jul. 13th, 2004 02:13 pmA minor bureaucrat suggested we might want to postpone elections if a terrorist attack happened close to election day. That's not the sensible idea I'm referring to. Sounded to me like somebody coming up with excuses to make Congress allocate more money to his fiefdom. The Bush administration is jumping on the guy with both feet to deny wanting anything like it, while everyone who considers Bush a tyrant is shouting "See! He's going to cancel the election! See the violence inherent in the system!"
OTOH, he does have a point. Manhattan couldn't have an election while dealing with the aftermath and New York postponed the primary scheduled for that day. So if we did have an 11/2 attack we'd be faced with having to postpone the election or having a chunk of the country not vote that day.
![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
t3knomanser came up with a very good idea for how to handle the problem: Have everyone vote absentee. This also fixes all the hanging chad, electronic voting machine, and access to polling stations problems I've heard so much bitching about. And it does it without needing any new rules or equipment. We would need a lot more manpower to count them, but the poll station staffers would be available, and that's a lot of man-hours.
There's some personal appeal too. I could fill out the ballot, seal the envelope, vomit, mail it off, and then stick my fingers in my ears and ignore the rest of the electoral fracas until the counting starts. That'd be nice. Maybe I'll vote absentee this year anyway.
OTOH, he does have a point. Manhattan couldn't have an election while dealing with the aftermath and New York postponed the primary scheduled for that day. So if we did have an 11/2 attack we'd be faced with having to postpone the election or having a chunk of the country not vote that day.
t3knomanser came up with a very good idea for how to handle the problem: Have everyone vote absentee. This also fixes all the hanging chad, electronic voting machine, and access to polling stations problems I've heard so much bitching about. And it does it without needing any new rules or equipment. We would need a lot more manpower to count them, but the poll station staffers would be available, and that's a lot of man-hours.There's some personal appeal too. I could fill out the ballot, seal the envelope, vomit, mail it off, and then stick my fingers in my ears and ignore the rest of the electoral fracas until the counting starts. That'd be nice. Maybe I'll vote absentee this year anyway.
