Postponing Election?

[HockeyMom]

My daughter managed to call me and said she heard that NY wants to postpone the election because of Sandy, with all the outages and devastation. The same situation exists in NJ and other states.

How can a Presidential election be held with tens of millions of people on the Eastern Seaboard not being able to vote? The Republican Congress will not postpone the election because of BLUE STATES.

BTW, cell phone usage is very bad. We have been using our land line phone because we can't get signals with the cell or at best we keep getting dropped calls.

How do you hold an election like this? It is not going to be all better by Tuesday.

[Butterbean]

1. I read on CNN this morning that they won't, but don't know how reliable that is.

[Butterbean]

4. Here we go, this is what I read (link to follow)

http://www.cnn.com/2012/10/31/politics/sandy-election-day-postponement/index.html?hpt=po_t1

[snappyturtle]

2. I've been wondering about this too. Rmoney will never allow a postponement....or whine. nt

[Jennicut]

3. NY has a law that if there is not enough turnout in a jurisdiction there can be another day

of voting.

"In New York, state election board spokesman John Conklin said local boards in counties affected by the storm are assessing their polling sites to determine whether they will have power and be accessible to the public for the election.

Electric utilities serving New York City and Long Island are “prioritizing those areas for restoring power,” he said.

In the event of a natural disaster, New York law provides for an additional day of voting if turnout in a jurisdiction is less than 25 percent, Conklin said. Such voting must occur within 20 days of the election, he said."

http://www.businessweek.com/news/2012-10-31/sandy-caused-power-outages-may-complicate-election-day

[WI_DEM]

5. They won't postpone the election.

[MSMITH33156]

6. They won't

postpone the election. And there is no need to, despite the devastation, unless the infrastructure is completely unworkable on Tuesday, which it shouldn't be. The subway is partially running, it should be fully running by next week. Most people will have power back.

As far as back to "normal", that could take months and more. But there will be access to voting places. Power effects everything, including cell phones (the towers use power). As those start to come online, normalcy returns rapidly. We've been through this many times in Florida with storms (not this bad though, since Andrew), but by Tuesday, voting should be doable. There is going to be long climb back to "pre-Sandy" conditions though.

[stillcool]

7. I read somewhere..

that New York will be adding more polling places, but nothing about postponing it.

[SoCalNative]

8. Bloomberg says NYC isn't postponing the NYC marathon

If they can keep that up and running, then they should have NO problem with the election.