Ted Boren's thoughts on giving Lt. Gov. the authority to change election parameters in the event of a declared disaster

[David Lifferth]

Dave, I think it's a good idea in the case of clearly defined natural disasters of significant scale. But anything manmade should not be included, including a terrorist attack. Otherwise others could try to manipulate the situation (or have the appearance of trying to manipulate the situation) to their advantage. Even for natural disasters, I would want a broad consensus of elected leaders (not just the secretary of state, for example), agreeing that the extraordinary steps were needed -- something like a two thirds majority of both houses, plus the executive branch, maybe plus the Utah Supreme Court. I know it might be hard to pull all of that together on short notice in an emergency -- but it OUGHT to be hard to change something as fundamentally important as this. It would help if the alternatives were thought through well in advance, so it's really a "go/no-go decision" and not a whole plan being thought up and enacted. I'd rather have elections delayed than have a half-baked process mess with the outcome of an election. My 2 cents! I couldn't find a place to comment on the site, so I'm sending via email. Feel free to post if you want. Ted

[Charlotte Ducos]

I agree that we should have a planned contingency for major emergency events. This should kick in only in very extreme circumstances and have a very clear trigger. I think Ted's requirements may be a bit extreme or hard to muster in an emergency, but I agree that it should not be easy to do and should be employable only in the case of an emergency that clearly makes secure elections an impossibility. This is a difficult standard to create, but I think it should be, given the issue at hand.