Phooey On Early Voting
The idea behind having an election can be explained fully in very simple terms. A population collectively decides on a candidate or an issue at a given time. In practice, most political systems have an election day (see, for example, Article Two of the U.S. Constitution). Not election weeks or an election month. Election day. On election day everybody votes having, as a practical matter, the same information with which to make a decision. When, however, elections get extended through weeks or a month or more then people voting, say, at the beginning of October had not yet seen the McCain/Palin ticket rejected by a string of high profile Republicans, including General Colin Powell. To some, such facts might make a difference. Having voters vote at the beginning of October with a different fact set than voters voting in early November works fine if what you want is a rolling average of public judgments but if what you really want is a single collective decision then you've got a big problem.
Traditionally we make provisions for absentee voting in the higher interest of having people vote who, through no fault of their own, might not be able to vote on election day. People in nursing homes, people working abroad, armed services personnel or diplomats abroad, situations like that. The numbers voting absentee never, until now, conceptually mattered very much in an election's outcome, certainly not in the sense of having different fact sets available to different groups of voters. Absentee ballots mostly produced electoral noise.
In 2008, however, perhaps as many as one third of all votes will come from early voting. Anyone, for any reason, or for no reason, can vote early in many jurisdictions. This allows more people to vote and it makes voting on election day easier by relieving stresses on local election officials. But neither of those rationalizations seems sufficient to outweigh the desirability of the actual choice being the same for all or virtually all voters, and to the extent that those rationalizations have merit the perceived problems can be addressed more directly in other ways.
It shouldn't be so difficult to register to vote. It shouldn't be so difficult to vote on a workday. Instead we should vote on weekends or have a day off to vote. It shouldn't be difficult to interpret the layout of a ballot and ballots shouldn't be designed differently in each local constituency. The solution is pretty obvious: do like other advanced democracies and have national level control over balloting that involves national level decisions. If local authorities object that they have the responsibility to determine residency, tough. There's no excuse, for example, for voter registration challenges, or potential challenges, against literally hundreds of thousands of Ohio voters. Local authorities are too corrupt, too incompetent, to handle the job. Besides, those local authorities who properly register voters and accurately count votes probably wouldn't be the ones objecting to Federal control.
Possibly I worry too much. But it seems to me that an uncritical acceptance of early voting (has anybody seen arguments against it? — I haven't) insidiously undermines our understanding of what an election is supposed to be about. How much farther down this path might it be before we begin to consider other possibilities like weighting individuals' votes by age, education, or income? I wonder...
Posted by George Kenney on November 1, 2008 3:34 AM 
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Comments
I don't see a problem with early voting! Isn't it possible, that a voter cannot possibly ever vote for McCain/Palin for any number of reasons and thus — given the limited choice — has to vote for the ‘other’, less problematic Obama/Biden candidates? How many times does a voter have to watch on TV McCain or Obama speak to his supporters before deciding? In this black/white limited choice situation with just two candidates with a potential chance to win, many voters make up their mind years in advance...
As long as you don’t have to early vote, it is perfectly OK with me.
Posted by: Tom | November 2, 2008 3:56 PM
Landslide for Obama? Not so sure. Considering the last two elections were stolen, and the ability to do the same in an even more subtle fashion has been re-enforced by HAVA, plus the unique 'covert racism' factor in this election, I think the result will be a lot closer than anybody is expecting. To me, it looks like a toss up.
Posted by: David | November 3, 2008 2:01 PM
...there again the 'Good ol' boy' abstention factor might come into play. As I read on one forum "I aint voting for no n... and I aint voting for no woman"
[In terms of undecideds I heard something interesting over the weekend. People in an Obama call center in Ohio were finding some married white women who would disclose that they intended to vote for Obama but because of the, shall we say, 'volatility' of their husbands wouldn't discuss politics at home. I have no idea how many people may be in this group but anecdotally it suggests that the undecideds may not necessarily break one way or the other and may be more or less a wash. g.]
Posted by: David | November 3, 2008 2:09 PM
As a long time resident of Hawaii, I see a big benefit of early voting. It helps counter the time zone effect. People in western states can vote their conscience free of the influence of east coast election results.
[That's a very valid concern. Perhaps another way of getting at it would be to delay reporting results? g.]
Posted by: 8isis8
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November 7, 2008 1:46 AM