*RED ALERT: FEMA Making Preparations to Postpone Presidential Elections in Wake of Sandy

The Federal Emergency Management Agencyis preparing for Hurricane Sandy to disrupt next week’s elections, agency Administrator Craig Fugate said Monday afternoon.

From Politico:

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[Translate] FEMA has just reported that they are preparing for Hurricane Sandy to disrupt next Tuesday’s Presidential elections. Will Obama declare Martial Law along the US east coast due to the massive devastation and become the defacto der fuhrer by suspending elections? The Federal Emergency Management Agency is preparing for Hurricane Sandy to disrupt next week’s elections, agency Administrator Craig Fugate said Monday afternoon. From Politico: “We are anticipating that, based on the storm, there could be impacts that would linger into next week and have impacts on the federal election,” Fugate said on a conference call with reporters.

But any potential tinkering with Election Day would bring a bevy of legal issues. “Our chief counsel’s been working on making sure that we have the proper guidance,” he added. “We’re going through the regulatory policy and making sure all that’s in place and we can support it.” It appears that only local elections would be impacted- but such a situation could result in a nightmare as most of America would vote on Tuesday and then wait indefinitely for the Northeast to hold their elections: Based on what little legal precedent there is — most of which is because of concerns over terrorism — plus the role of the states in administering elections, the president and Congress aren’t very likely to step in, according to Winkler.

A prominent example is New York’s Sept. 11, 2001, mayoral primary was postponed due to the terrorist attacks on that city. Winkler also pointed to the 2004 election, during which concerns about terrorist attacks disrupting the election swirled. The House of Representatives that year overwhelming passed a resolution declaring that “the actions of terrorists will never cause the date of any Presidential election to be postponed; and … no single individual or agency should be given the authority to postpone the date of a Presidential election.” With Obama now behind in nearly all polls, does anyone think he would not jump at the opportunity to use his power to postpone the elections? However, the report theorizes that presidential emergency power could be used to delay an election — specifically, if “attacks, disruptions and destruction are so severe and so dangerous in certain localities, particularly in crowded urban areas, that the President under a rule of necessity may look to protect the public safety by federalizing State national guard and restricting movement and activities in such areas which would obviously affect the ability to conduct an election at those sites.”

If any changes are made, expect whichever campaign that loses the election to make a historic stink and file nearly every imaginable lawsuit: Of course, expect any change to Election Day to bring a host of lawsuits. Without much precedent to go on, though, Winkler predicts courts will back up any changes made in Sandy’s wake. “Just as the parties tend to come together to solve these kinds of crises, the courts usually recognize the legitimacy of these pragmatic workarounds,” Winkler said. While it is far too early to predict how this will play out, we are reminded of the words of the Obama Administration’s Rahm Emanuel: ‘never let a good crisis go to waste.‘