WILL THE ATTACK COME ON ELECTION DAY?

Everyone in America is holding his or her breath, sure that an Islamofascist terrorist attack will be perpetrated before the November election. Al Qaeda wants to pull off another Spain, it is thought. Blowing up the Madrid trains just before the Spanish election defeated the anti-terrorist Aznar government and put spineless Bambi Zapatero, in office.

Al Qaeda’s greatest goal right now is to prevent the re-election of George Bush. That is why the safest place in the US this month will be Boston. There is no way anything will be perpetrated to attack the Democrat Convention. New York during the Republican Convention is another matter.

But this is what is expected. Here is what worries me. Suppose there is no attack at all right up to election day, November 2. Everyone will breathe a sigh of relief and our guard will be down. Suppose that’s what Al Qaeda is hoping for – and they attack a number of electric power grids on election day?

Why would they do that? To invalidate the election by taking down the power for electronic voting machines. Blowing a few pylons of the Pacific Inter-Tie, the power backbone for the entire US west coast, could prevent vote-counting in thousands of precincts – and that’s just one example out of hundreds of possibilities. Creating such chaos and confusion on election day would de-legitimize the election and immobilize the American government.

Here’s the solution: provide every precinct with electronic voting machines in the country with a portable generator, the kind you can get at Wal-Mart or Home Depot and most large RV’s have. Yes, it might cost $20 million or so, but that’s a pittance compared to the cost of invalidating the presidential election. And county government emergency services could use them afterward.

Expect to see a bill in Congress authorizing an appropriation for precinct generators shortly.