Amid reports that the Bush administration is taking preliminary steps toward creating a contingency plan to postpone the November elections in the event of a terrorist attack, analysts are divided as to the need for such a plan – and its legality.

“This is an outrage,” said a professor at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government, Elaine Kamarck. “Pure partisan you-know-what.”

The chairman of the U.S. Election Assistance Commission, DeForest Soaries, yesterday suggested there should be a process in place to cancel or reschedule federal elections if terrorists attacked America. Mr. Soaries voiced his concerns in a letter to congressional leaders, the Associated Press reported.

“There does not appear to be a clear process in place to suspend or reschedule voting during an election if there is a major terrorist attack,” Mr. Soaries wrote to Republican and Democratic leaders in the U.S. House and Senate, according to the AP.

However, President Bush’s national security adviser, Condoleezza Rice, yesterday denied suggestions that the administration was considering ways to delay the November election in the event of an attack. “No one’s thinking about postponing the election,” she said.

The speculation began over the weekend, when Newsweek reported that the Department of Homeland Security has asked the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel to investigate the legal steps required for such a postponement.

One expert said such a plan might seem reasonable in theory, but it is unlikely to happen.

“I suppose if there is a terrorist strike two days before the election, it would be responsible to have a plan on your desk,” said a professor of government at Cornell University, Jeremy Rabkin. “But under almost any circumstances, it would probably be better to go forward with an election.”

After the March 11 terrorist attack in Madrid and the ensuing election of Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, who supported the withdrawal of Spanish troops from Iraq, the report has prompted speculation that the Bush administration might try to avoid the backlash of a pre-election attack by postponing the vote.

Critics from filmmaker Michael Moore to a former White House counterterrorism director, Richard Clarke, have accused the president of showing a disregard for constitutional procedures.

“Four years ago, people were going berserk, saying that Bush stole the election,” Mr. Rabkin said. “They think Bush is really capable of everything.”

A resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, Walter Berns, called the charges of partisan motivation “ridiculous,” and said he doesn’t think the debate will amount to much. “Breathe easy,” he said. “Nothing like this is going to happen.”

Contingency plans are not a new concept in American government. Since the early days of the Cold War, Washington has had an emergency evacuation procedure for high-level officials. Even as late as 1931, America still had plans in case of a British invasion, according to Mr. Rabkin. “There’s nothing sinister about that,” he said.

But American history offers no precedent for postponing elections on a federal level. In 1864, the last instance of wartime elections, citizens cast their ballots on schedule even as Union soldiers defended the capital.

“I think the only circumstances where it would be appropriate was if the country’s communications were so disrupted that people couldn’t get to the polls,” Mr. Rabkin said.

Such was the case in 2001, when the September 11 attacks forced New York City’s Board of Elections to postpone its primaries for two weeks. But the federal government has no agency to handle such emergencies, Newsweek reported.

The challenge for the Bush administration is keeping people informed about antiterrorism precautions without igniting panic among Americans, according to Mr. Rabkin. “Doing it secretly does set people off,” he said. “Particularly when talking about an election, you don’t want people to think you’re manipulating it.”