Can the next General Election be delayed beyond Jan 2025?

[Quartz]

Can the date of the general election be put back? Let's say Sunak stays to the bitter end, setting the date of the next general election as Jan 26th (maybe Jan 27th) 2025. Shortly before that date something happens - maybe there's big snowstorm, a red weather alert affecting much of the UK, another Storegga Slide that inundates the east coast, a huge earthquake along the Great Glen, or maybe there's a measles outbreak. Or whatever, but nothing so serious as war, and nothing political. Regardless of the cause it is going to prevent significant numbers of people from getting to the polling booths on polling day and it's too late to send out postal voting forms. Can the date of the general election be put back? As a whole? How about on a constituency by constituency basis?

 

[Quartz]

Greta Thunberg dictates the weather. If we have a 40C summer again, it's because Greta dictated it...

Education, education, education.

Not useful responses.

 

[Quartz]

We have rules/laws etc, we might not like the government that we have, we might want to get them out as soon as possible, and that will happen, just let it happen under the normal rules..

What do you think will happen when a considerable part of the population - for whatever reason - cannot vote on the day? Surely we must have some sort of procedure, some arcane law, to cope with this?

could it happen, technically maybe
will it happen, no

Did you predict Covid? But there have been massive snowstorms before - go back to the 1950s and 60s. More recently there was the great storm of 1987 which downed trees all over a large part of the country, blocking transport.

If a general election isn't called this year then it will raise more questions than it answers.

I think Dec 16th or 17th is the last possible day that Sunak can call a general election and if he doesn't the election gets called automatically anyway, but the election itself is 4-5 working weeks later and the turn of the year has 4 days of holidays.

 

[Quartz]

But lets face it, it wouldn't be the first time the conservatives have ridden bare-back over estabished precident and common decency in the last ten years, so I guess we wait and see.

Nor Labour, nor the SNP.

 

[Quartz]

Alas both options look *****.

All three options up here.

 

[Quartz]

Even if an election was triggered in the midst of covid I'm sure it would have gone ahead as planned.

In that scenario there would have been plenty of time to arrange for postal votes for everyone; I'm asking about something serious happening at near the end of a campaign.

 

[Quartz]

To me this would have to be serious emergencies, such as being invaded by a foreign army, nuclear attack, widespead insurgency, rioting and such like.

No, just short of that. I gave examples in my OP.

 

[Quartz]

Yeah, I didn't really address those as I would just be repeating what others already said that minor and localised issues are not going to block a general vote. Anything that stops everyone from getting out and voting would have to be a major national catastrophe

You might want to read up on the big freeze of 1963 and the Storegga Slide and consider how disruptive repeats could be. The latter might inundate large parts of NE Scotland, Lincolnshire, Cambridgeshire, and Norfolk and maybe London.

 

[Quartz]

Doing it around Christmas or depths of winter is likely to backfire on them.

Why? Sunak has nothing to lose and everything to gain. And in terms of getting out the vote, postal votes are available.

 

[Quartz]

Because old Tory voters wont go out in the dark or terrible weather,

They tend to have cars.

and it's entirely possible they didn't register for postal vote.

If I've read it correctly, this academic article indicates that the elderly are more likely to register for postal votes