Could hurricane Sandy postpone the Presidential election?

DutchBoy

Rookie
Oct 29, 2012
17
1
1
I live in The Netherlands and I think that the election might not take place next week because of Sandy. This disaster is too big. Will power be restored at all places for example before next week? What do you think?
 
Most likely scenario is that provisional ballots would be given to those who were unable to vote as a result of the disaster. Those votes would not be counted unless the election were really close.
 
I live in The Netherlands and I think that the election might not take place next week because of Sandy. This disaster is too big. Will power be restored at all places for example before next week? What do you think?

Nope... rain, sleet ,snow, or all of the above, our election will happen.
 
I live in The Netherlands and I think that the election might not take place next week because of Sandy. This disaster is too big. Will power be restored at all places for example before next week? What do you think?

Nope... rain, sleet ,snow, or all of the above, our election will happen.

What make you so sure about that? We'll have to wait a couple of days I think. It is more realistic than ever before.
 
Andrew Cohen - Andrew Cohen is a contributing editor at The Atlantic and legal analyst for 60 Minutes. He is also chief analyst and legal editor for CBS Radio News and has won a Murrow Award as one of the nation's leading legal analysts and commentators.

No matter how bad Hurricane Sandy turns out to be, it could have been a lot worse: It could have struck one week later than it did, swamping the 2012 presidential election in its low-pressure trough. As hard as it will be for officials to recover from the storm in time for next week's vote, and as frustrated as many early voters will be this week amid the flood waters, just imagine how many citizens would have been deprived of their ability to vote if the hurricane had blown through the East Coast on November 5 or 6. No trains. No buses. No roads. No electricity. No polling stations. No poll watchers. No voting for tens of millions of Americans.

We got lucky, in other words, at least as far as the election is concerned -- an election remarkably void, it must be said, of any meaningful dialogue about the effects of global warming on America's climate. The timing of Hurricane Sandy is indeed a reminder that there are things in this world far more powerful than our presidential campaigns and stump-speech timetables. It's a reminder that also raises an important question many storm watchers might reasonably be asking themselves as the rain and wind pounds down on them. Could America ever delay a presidential election due to a natural event or other catastrophe?

The short answer is yes. The long answer is, well, long. In 2004, lawyer and Fordham and University of Pennslyvania law professor Jerry H. Goldfeder wrote an influential law review article in the Fordham Urban Law Journal titled "Could Terrorists Derail a Presidential Election?" Goldfeder's rationale and legal reasoning about such a doomsday scenario applies to natural disasters as well. I caught up with him via email on Monday afternoon, as he hunkered down in Manhattan to wait out Hurricane Sandy, to ask him to walk me through how it might all play out.



http://www.theatlantic.com/politics...dy-postpone-the-presidential-election/264254/
 
Last edited by a moderator:
I live in The Netherlands and I think that the election might not take place next week because of Sandy. This disaster is too big. Will power be restored at all places for example before next week? What do you think?

No. The only reason it's seen as "big" is because it's hitting the NE part of the Country. A Category 1 storm is not that tremendous in terms of damage usually.
 
I live in The Netherlands and I think that the election might not take place next week because of Sandy. This disaster is too big. Will power be restored at all places for example before next week? What do you think?

Nope... rain, sleet ,snow, or all of the above, our election will happen.

What make you so sure about that?

This little thing called the Constitution, now shut the fuck up before you make yourself look even more ignorant.
 
The time of federal elections is encoded in our constitution. It'll happen on time.
 
The time of federal elections is encoded in our constitution. It'll happen on time.

Really? Please show me the part of the Constitution that states that Presidential elections will be the 1st Tuesday in November.

It doesn't. Congress has the power to set the day of the presidential elections. Article II

The Congress may determine the Time of chusing the Electors, and the Day on which they shall give their Votes; which Day shall be the same throughout the United States.
 
The time of federal elections is encoded in our constitution. It'll happen on time.

Really? Please show me the part of the Constitution that states that Presidential elections will be the 1st Tuesday in November.

It doesn't. Congress has the power to set the day of the presidential elections. Article II

The Congress may determine the Time of chusing the Electors, and the Day on which they shall give their Votes; which Day shall be the same throughout the United States.

correct. Which technically means, if there were a disaster large enough to affect a large enough portion of the voting population, Congress has the power to change the date of the election. I seriously doubt they ever would, but it is not outside their powers.
 
The time of federal elections is encoded in our constitution. It'll happen on time.

Really? Please show me the part of the Constitution that states that Presidential elections will be the 1st Tuesday in November.

Dude?

It gives CONGRESS the power to set the election...nobody else.

Not even the Boy King Bammy.

Correct. My point may have been lost on some. Dickless implied that the date of the election is encoded in the COnstitution. It is not. Article II gives Congress the power to set the day, time, etc., but does not establish a specific date/time as Dickless Fuck implied. It could just as easily be the 3rd saturday of October, if Congress decided to make it so.
 
I live in The Netherlands and I think that the election might not take place next week because of Sandy. This disaster is too big. Will power be restored at all places for example before next week? What do you think?

Nope... rain, sleet ,snow, or all of the above, our election will happen.

What make you so sure about that? We'll have to wait a couple of days I think. It is more realistic than ever before.

Our election happens on the first Tuesday of November, period.

There is no Constitutional provision to postpone a Presidential election.
 

New Topics

Forum List

Back
Top