- WASHINGTON - A senior House
Democratic lawmaker was skeptical on Sunday of a Bush administration idea
to obtain the authority to delay the November presidential election in
case of an attack by al Qaeda,
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- U.S. counterterrorism officials are looking at an emergency
proposal on the legal steps needed to postpone the presidential election
in case of such an attack, Newsweek reported on Sunday.
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- "I think it's excessive based on what we know,"
said Rep. Jane Harman of California, the top Democrat on the House Intelligence
Committee, in a interview on CNN's "Late Edition."
-
- Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge warned last week
that Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda network want to attack within the United
States to try to disrupt the election.
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- Harman said Ridge's threat warning "was a bust"
because it was based on old information.
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- Newsweek cited unnamed sources who told it that the Department
of Homeland Security asked the Justice Department last week to review what
legal steps would be needed to delay the vote if an attack occurred on
the day before or on election day.
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- The department was asked to review a letter from DeForest
Soaries, chairman of the new U.S. Election Assistance Commission, in which
he asked Ridge to ask Congress for the power to put off the election in
the event of an attack, Newsweek reported in its issue out on Monday.
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- The commission was created in 2002 to provide funds to
states to replace punch card voting systems and provide other assistance
in conducting federal elections.
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- In his letter, Soaries wrote that while New York's Board
of Elections suspended primary elections in New York on the day of the
Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, "the federal government has no agency that
has the statutory authority to cancel and reschedule a federal election."
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- Homeland Security Department spokesman Brian Rochrkasse
told the magazine the agency is reviewing the matter "to determine
what steps need to be taken to secure the election."
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- Republican Rep. Christopher Cox of California, who chairs
the House Homeland Security Committee, told CNN that the idea of legislation
allowing the election to be postponed was similar to what had already been
looked at in terms of how to respond to an attack on Congress.
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- "These are doomsday scenarios. Nobody expects that
they're going to happen," he said. "But we're preparing for all
these contingencies now."
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