Terror Attack 'could Delay Us Election'

Officials are discussing the possibility of postponing November's presidential election for the first time in US history in the event of a devastating terrorist attack, it emerged yesterday.

A spokesman for the administration confirmed that the justice department's office of legal counsel had been asked for guidelines for a possible postponement, days after the homeland security secretary, Tom Ridge, warned that al-Qaida was plotting a large-scale attack aimed at disrupting the November 2 election.

The justice department did not return calls seeking comment.

A primary election in New York scheduled for September 11 2001 was quickly postponed by the state's election board after hijacked planes hit the World Trade Centre that day.

But the US election assistance commission noted that "the federal government has no agency that has the statutory authority to cancel and reschedule a federal election", according to a letter to Mr Ridge published by Newsweek magazine.

Some legal experts argued that bestowing that power on an official or body would require a constitutional amendment. But Todd Peterson, a law professor at George Washington University, said Congress already had that power.

"My sense is that it wouldn't need a constitutional amendment," Prof Peterson said. "Congress has pretty clear constitutional authority to determine the timing both of the presidential and congressional elections."

In the middle of a particularly bitter and close presidential race, and after the legal wrangling that ultimately led to George Bush's disputed victory in 2000, the mere mention of the possibility of a postponement was enough to spark controversy.

"I don't think there's an argument that can be made, for the first time in our history, to delay an election," said Dianne Feinstein of California, a Democratic member of the Senate intelligence committee.

"We hold elections in the middle of war, in the middle of earthquakes, in the middle of whatever it takes. The election is a statutory election. It should go ahead, on schedule, and we should not change it."

But some legal observers said it was part of the homeland security department's job to consider the means of ensuring the continuity of American government after an attack.

Juliette Kayyem, an expert on terrorism and the law at Harvard University, said: "It's very consistent with the continuity of government plan. But ... it would not be easy to postpone a federal election."

Ms Kayyem believed that only a catastrophic attack, such as a nuclear blast, on Washington itself would justify a nationwide postponement. An attack anywhere else could be dealt with by a delay in the affected state.

President Bush yesterday defended his decision to go to war in Iraq, arguing that Saddam Hussein had posed a serious threat to the US, despite a Senate report last week which found that prewar intelligence suggesting Iraq had weapons of mass destruction had been wrong. He said: "We removed a declared enemy of America who had the capability of producing weapons of mass murder."