I’m sure that everyone has just been DYING to see me opine on the notion of postponing the Presidential elections that’s been floating around, and I’d hate to disappoint my legions of fans (yeah, both of you). I’ve been giving it a great deal of thought, and even some research, over the last few days.

First, I reluctantly have to agree with Dean Esmay here. There is no way, in the incredibly poisonous atmosphere currently surrounding our politics, that this upcoming election could be postponed without causing the whackos on both ends to go absolutely stark raving bonkers (as opposed to their normal raving bonkers state). It’s gonna be November 2, come hell, high water, dirty bombs, plane crashes, plague, famine, pestilence, or death.

But there very well could be circumstances in the future that would demand elections be postponed or rescheduled, and it would be grossly negligent if we didn’t address that before we had to.

But while doing my research, I discovered that I had made an assumption that many others did – that it would require amending the Constitution, an idea so radical and cumbersome it had only been done 17 times since the Constitution and Bill of Rights were adopted over 220 years ago. After all the “first Tuesday after the first Monday in November” is graven in stone, isn’t it?

No, it isn’t.

I went nuts trying to find that phrase in the Constitution and it’s amendments, and it isn’t there. The only time-specific references to the Presidency is in the 20th Amendment, which specifies that “The terms of the President and the Vice President shall end at noon on the 20th day of January, and the terms of Senators and Representatives at noon on the 3d day of January, of the years in which such terms would have ended if this article had not been ratified; and the terms of their successors shall then begin.”

In fact, the only direction the Constitution itself gives is in Article II, Section 1, Paragraph 4, which reads in full:

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 actual setting of Election Day and the day the Electoral College votes is set by the U.S. Code. Election day is “The electors of President and Vice President shall be appointed, in each State, on the Tuesday next after the first Monday in November, in every fourth year succeeding every election of a President and Vice President,” and the College’s voting will be “the first Monday after the second Wednesday in December next following their appointment at such place in each State as the legislature of such State shall direct.”

What Congress passes, Congress may un-pass (excepting a Presidential veto which may be overridden, etc. etc). As long as Congress doesn’t mess with the actual beginning of the Presidential term of office, it can set the election day and Electoral College day whenever it likes.

(Yes, I know there are some hard deadlines that involve the House having convened to certify the election, but that’s irrelevant to my point here.)

With that in mind, I’d like to offer my own proposal for adjusting this process, keeping in mind the advances in communication and transportation since these dates were set, back in 1845:

The changing of the Election Day (and consequently, the Electoral College day) will be at the discretion of a five-member panel, consisting of the Speaker of the House, the Majority Leader of the Senate, the Minority Leaders of both houses, and the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court. If four of the five all vote to reschedule the election, it will be done.

The only restrictions shall be that it shall be no earlier than October 1 and no later than December 15.

The Electoral College shall cast it’s votes exactly one week after the General Election.

I think this is feasible. Say what you want about the 2000 election, it wasn’t settled until the Supreme Court ruled on December 12, and the nation generally as a whole accepted the results. The Electoral College convened and voted for Bush on the 13th, the election was certified by the House on January 6, and he was inaugurated on January 20th – despite the incredible acrimony surrounding the whole Florida kerfuffle,

(Note: this is not intended and will not become a rehashing of the 2000 election. It’s the past. It’s over and done with. This is about the future, and those events are being cited solely to demonstrate the overall sturdiness of our institutions and the American people’s willingness to settle matters without violence and revolution, unlike some other countries I could name.)

I briefly toyed with making this a seven-person panel, including the two leading nominees for President and changing the vote to 5 of 7. I’m still undecided about that. The idea, however, is to involve the other branches of government and to prevent one party from simply rescheduling the election for their sole benefit – it would take at least one person from the opposing party to cross the line and vote in favor of rescheduling for it to occur, and by keeping it from being unanimous cuts down on one person proving an intractable obstacle.

Anyway, that’s my pipe dream. As always, feel free to tell me what a maroon I am.

J.