Mixed feelings.
It tends to reduce the impact of last-minute smear jobs. I like
discouraging those. If the smear were that important, it would seem to
me that it should be released early and repeated often.
David
"If you think health care is expensive now, wait until you see what it
costs when it's free
"If you think health care is expensive now, wait until you see what it
costs when it's free."*---P. J. O'Rourke*
On 1/30/2014 5:52 AM, [email protected] wrote:
The Case Against Early Voting
By EUGENE KONTOROVICH and JOHN MCGINNIS
January 28, 2014
*To the delight of anyone whoâEUR^(TM)s ever waited in line to cast a
vote, a bipartisan election commission convened by President Barack
Obama concluded last week that states across the country should
increase their use of early voting.*
www.politico.com <http://www.politico.com>
As the Presidential Commission on Election Administration notes in its
new report
<https://www.supportthevoter.gov/files/2014/01/Amer-Voting-Exper-final-draft-01-09-14-508.pdf>,
âEURoeno excuseâEUR? early voting âEUR" meaning it is open even to
those who donâEUR^(TM)t qualify for an absentee ballot âEUR" has grown
rapidly in recent decades in what the commission called a âEURoequiet
revolution.âEUR? In the 2012 election, almost one-third of ballots
were cast early âEUR" more than double those cast in 2000 âEUR" and 32
states now permit the practice, allowing citizens to vote an average
of 19 days before Election Day.
The commission rightly notes that early voting has its advantages for
individual voters âEUR" not just avoiding long lines, but in many
cases also getting to vote on weekends without having to miss work or
school. But early voting run amok is bad for democracy. The costs to
collective self-governance âEUR" which the report refers to only in
passing, in a single sentence âEUR" substantially outweigh the
benefits. Instead of expanding the practice, we should use this moment
as an opportunity to establish clear limits on it before it becomes
the norm.
Why? For all its conveniences, early voting threatens the basic nature
of citizen choice in democratic, republican government. In elections,
candidates make competing appeals to the people and provide them with
the information necessary to be able to make a choice. Citizens also
engage with one another, debating and deliberating about the best
options for the country. Especially in an age of so many nonpolitical
distractions, it is important to preserve the space of a general
election campaign âEUR" from the early kickoff rallies to the last
debates in October âEUR" to allow voters to think through, together,
the serious issues that face the nation.
The integrity of that space is broken when some citizens cast their
ballots as early as 46 days before the election, as some states allow.
A lot can happen in those 46 days. Early voters are, in essence, asked
a different set of questions from later ones; they are voting with a
different set of facts. They may cast their ballots without the
knowledge that comes from later candidate debates (think of the
all-important Kennedy-Nixon debates, which ran from late September
1960 until late October); without further media scrutiny of
candidates; or without seeing how they respond to unexpected national
or international news events âEUR" the proverbial âEURoeOctober
surprise.âEUR? The 2008 election, for example, could have ended
differently had many voters cast their ballots before the massive
economic crisis that followed the collapse of Lehman Brothers that
September. Similarly, candidates often seek to delay the release of
embarrassing information, or the implementation of difficult policies,
until after votes have been cast. A wave of votes starting months
before the election date makes this easier.
Early voting not only limits the set of information available to
voters; to the extent that it decreases the importance of debates, it
might also systematically help incumbents and quasi-incumbents like
vice presidents, who generally have the advantage of having been in
the public eye longer.
More fundamentally, early voting changes what it means to vote. It is
well known that voters can change their minds âEUR" polls always go up
and down during a campaign season. A single Election Day creates a
focal point that gives solemnity and relevance to the state of popular
opinion at a particular moment in time; on a single day, we all have
to come down on one side or the other. But if the word
âEURoeelectionâEUR? comes to mean casting votes over a period of
months, it will elide the difference between elections and polls.
People will be able to vote when the mood strikes them âEUR" after
seeing an inflammatory ad, for example. Voting then becomes an
incoherent summing of how various individuals feel at a series of
moments, not how the nation feels at a particular moment. This weakens
civic cohesiveness, and it threatens to substitute raw preferences and
momentary opinion for rational deliberation. Of course, those eager to
cast early will be the most ideological âEUR" but these are precisely
the voters who would benefit most from taking in the full back and
forth of the campaign.
Moreover, there are other ways of achieving some of the benefits of
early voting, such as old-fashioned absentee ballots or setting up
more polling places. Even a limited few-days-early voting period could
convey most of the advantages of the practice while limiting the most
severe democratic costs.
Early voting is a matter of degree: Even Election âEURoeDayâEUR? lets
people cast ballots at different times. But at the moment, there is no
upper bound at all on the growing practice, and the
presidentâEUR^(TM)s commission made no mention of such an option. With
the groupâEUR^(TM)s report opening a new round of discussion over
voting policy, now is the time to consider whether the âEURoequiet
revolutionâEUR? of early voting has gone too far.
--
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Centroids: The Center of the Radical Centrist Community
<[email protected]>
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Radical Centrism website and blog: http://RadicalCentrism.org
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