So... What if Election Day can't happen?

[RJM62]

So let's suppose that widespread power and communications outages were to occur because of the storm and couldn't be repaired by Election Day, rendering the new, electronic voting machines useless. Election Day is fixed by the Constitution, not by statute; so it can't be re-scheduled.

How would such a constitutional crisis be handled?

-Rich

 

[Jim Logajan]

No Constitutional crisis would be involved.

Indeed.

The proposed scenario causes a personal problem for many, but that's about it. People have routinely been unable to vote due to weather since the American revolution. The only difference in this case is the number of people affected.

No one in any of the Confederate States during the American civil war got to vote for the U.S. president, yet the election of 1864 went ahead as scheduled.

 

[Jim Logajan]

How many of those reading this would risk their life to vote?
What if some group promised to bomb polling places and that you had to go to one to vote; would you still do it?

 

[Jim Logajan]

so basically, some here are advocating that federal employees are to be the only ones allowed to vote while common people working in the private sector do not vote and exist to serve the government employees ?

The vets in Heinlein's story were volunteers, not really employees. I think the first few paragraph's of this person's essay on Heinlein's concept may clear things up (or not): http://www.nitrosyncretic.com/rah/ftp/fedrlsvc.pdf

Heinlein was a fiction writer. As that essay points out, Heinlein did suggest alternative ideas in his book "Expanded Universe."

I think everyone should be able to vote - but not everyone should be able to be a public servant (or public master, as the case appears to be today.) On the other hand, I believe Chinese and Egyptian history may suggest that sometimes a mechanism that is designed to insure a minimum level of technocratic competence can result in hundreds or even thousands of years of state statism.

 

[Jim Logajan]

I don't look down on people because of what "group" they belong to. I look down on people because of their actions and how they live their lives. I hate to tell you this, but people are not created equal. It's a matter of fact.

It is indeed a fact that genetics and environmental factors make us different. These are givens that we cannot control and do not wish to be judged by or held responsible for. As a matter of principle I don't believe most would consider it fair or humanly useful to "look down" on anyone who is forced to live their life a certain way because they were driven there by external factors.

With respect to who should vote - as a matter of principle I think those people who might be affected by legislation or its consequences should to the greatest extent possible be allowed to vote for the legislators who vote on it or the legislation directly.

Absent bad weather, of course.

 

[Jim Logajan]

Interesting. Did the 1845 law also specify a vote of the people to select the electors, or was that left up to the state legislatures to decide?

Since the South Carolina state legislature was choosing that state's presidential electors in 1860, the 1845 law obviously still left the manner of the choosing to the states. So it should still be the case today - though states appear to have adopted semi-uniform mechanisms:

http://uselectionatlas.org/INFORMATION/INFORMATION/electcollege_choosing.php