Election Day to be postponed because of Sandy?

A reporter asked White House spokesman Jay Carney today whether there was consideration being given to postponing the presidential election because of Hurricane Sandy. The issue is that utility companies have said that power outages are likely to be widespread and long lasting. Of course, polling places mostly use electrically-operated voting machines.

Carney declined to address the question (as he should have).

Follow-up question: Does the president have the authority to postpone the election?

Carney declined to address this, too. He was apparently unprepared for this topic, which is a good sign, actually, but one could argue that he should have known that the answer, Constitutionally, is No. The Constitution grants only the US Congress the authority to set "Times, Places, and Manners of holding Elections" for federal offices.

In 2004, potential terrorist threats related to election day caused some officials in the Bush administration to float the idea of postponing the election to throw off terrorists' presumed timetable and give the FBI and DHS more time to unravel any such plot. But nothing came of it and President Bush never attempted to declare a postponement.

However, since between now and Nov. 6 the House will not be in session at all and the Senate will be in session for only five more days, the chances of Congressional action on this matter are dead.