Can anyone explain to me why we "need" early voting?

In My Humble Opinion
21

I voted yesterday in Ohio by mail using what seems, for all intents and purposes, an absentee ballot.

Early voting is one of those things that just makes perfect sense when you think about it. If anything, I’m sure the new setups came about as a result of the 2004 election to alleviate the humongous clusterfuck of having to count so many votes in one day. But, when it was suggested, the brilliance of the idea also trickled down to the idea that it would open up the vote to all kinds of new people who previously did not have the time to vote and, yes, those who did not have the inclination to vote due to laziness or just being fed up with the actual process.

It’s really a win/win situation all around. There’s just no need for the system to be so archaic in this day and age.

22

With all due respect, I’m assuming you don’t work in one of the places that the board of elections commandeers for early voting? I honestly don’t think you could say that if you did.

23

You’re kidding, right? How is something that allows more citizens to exercise the franchise not progress? I voted yesterday at my local community center. It took 20 minutes. Where are you getting “stand in line for two hours” from?

24

Is this about you being inconvenienced because you work at an early voting site? Because, otherwise, unless you want to make it more difficult for people to vote, I’m really not getting your annoyance.

25

The line at my branch started forming at 9 o’clock this morning when the doors opened. Voting started at 11. Which means that even if you were first in line, you waited two hours today. And the line isn’t going any faster: someone literally just walked past my desk and said that, out loud, to no one in particular: “Well, that only took two and a half hours.”

No, that’s not what it’s about, or I’d have just posted in the Pit. I know my irritation has colored some of what I’ve said, but no, I really am open to being convinced that this is necessary. I’m just not convinced yet.

26

California allows one to become a permanent absentee. That’s what I am, and I didn’t have to give them any excuse.

One other thing that I don’t think I’ve seen mentioned is that our voting day is a pretty common work day. There are some countries that make election day a holiday, or schedule it for a weekend. We might not see as much of a need for early voting if our voting was scheduled for a day when many of our voters aren’t otherwise engaged.

27

It worked even better when we didn’t have to worry about the broads and the darkies either.

28

When I was in school, I heard every year how it was a terrible shame that we had such a low percentage of the electorate voting. Early voting has removed one barrier to voting, and we are seeing higher participation. There have been years when I did not vote because it was extremely inconvenient, and early voting might well have helped. One year I had to work from 7 am to what turned out to be 10 pm at a location over an hour from my house. I would have voted early if I could have. At that job, I feared that taking time to vote would have lead to me being fired.

To me the standard for voting should be, registering to vote, and serving jury duty when called if one is able. I don’t think any other unnecessary bar should be raised. It was damn shameful that not everyone who wanted to could vote in 2004.

29

My polling place accommodated about 200 people an hr running pretty flat-out. 200 x 12 hrs = 2400 people a day. Are you suggesting that either only 2400 people should be able to cast their ballot on election day? or perhaps that if someone really wanted to vote they should have the good ol’ fashioned gumption to stand in line for 24+ hrs until their turn comes up? Lots of people cannot afford to take off a day, or maybe their kid gets sick, or they get into a car accident, or have auto trouble, etc… under that system only those financially secure, lucky in the supervision or circumstance would be able to turn up for the polls. Or perhaps we ought to shut down the stadium and have enough polls there for everyone to vote? Hell we can’t handle traffic for rush hour, much less that amount of people.

Early voting, or rather voting earlier in the prescribed period in which you can cast your ballot, ensures that people have the opportunity to vote, not only at their convenience, but with a minimum of fuss and a maximum of accuracy. It prevents massive problems with machinery, or fraudulent activity. It is about ensuring that the maximum number of people who want to vote, can do so.

Your arguments against it make no sense. Either you like the idea of massive amounts of people being unable to cast their vote due to whatever circumstances arise, or you are simply stuck in the past. Neither are exactly compelling arguments.

30

But the friggin’ Irish have always been allowed. Go figure.

:wink:

31

Another good reason for early voting is that if you see problems emerging, like the West Virginia voting machines that were transforming Obama votes into McCain votes, then you actually have time to fix them. When problems first show up on Election Day, when you’ve got lines of people wrapping around the block all of whom have to get through in eight hours, there’s really no chance to fix them.

32

I suggest we vote drive through! Hand us the ticket at the first window - we punch it and turn it in at the second window. And give us mom, baseball, and supersize our apple pies with that.

:smiley:

I do think that with early voting we could consider setting up shop in an empty space (like an H&R Block storefront?) rather than having it invade our libraries and community centers where people are trying to conduct other affairs.

(I always find carrying affairs on behind the stacks quite thrilling).

But seriously.

33

If you accept the premise that we as a nation have the obligation to allow all eligible voters who choose to vote to do so, it becomes a question of logistics. As the population increased, aged, and became more literate, the need for expansion was a given. Do you want to increase capacity massively on one day, or increase capacity more moderately over time? Or do you want to use postal or internet voting? It’s an operational decision similar to a factory deciding whether it wants to expand the size of the plant or run the current one on evenings and weekends.

34

How does it shut down your branch? I voted at the local library, and the lack of parking probably inconvenienced some patrons (I picked up A Confederacy of Dunces while I was there – it seemed appropriate), there were people going in and out of the library while I stood in line. The line was entirely outside, not the most welcome thing when you have mid 80s temp and sunshine, but bearable for me. I wish that I’d worn a hat, though. They hold the voting in a room in the very front of the building reserved for miscellaneous events. No one was in the library proper. If anything for the people working at the library I imagine it was a slower day than normal.

On the regular election day you vote at community centers, libraries, churches and schools. All of the polling site workers seem to be volunteer retirees, although I’m sure some supervisory positions must be paid.

35

I could swear I saw drive through voting at the end of Colbert or the Daily Show.

36

I was asked if I was interested in working elections several years ago. I said “Sure! Sounds interesting!”, and was surprised to learn that it’s a paid position, and that includes payment for training and mileage. I’d always thought those old ladies were volunteers.

KneadToKnow, I can’t believe you’re still unconvinced. The only way to accommodate voters in high-population areas is with absentee ballots and early (expanded) voting hours. Many people aren’t comfortable trusting their ballot to the mail.

Our precinct has about 250 registered voters. For national elections we’re open from 7 a.m. to 9 p.m., 14 hours. That’s about 17 voters per hour. Sounds like it should be quick and easy, but with a long ballot and new machines, we were steadily busy all day in 2004. It’ll likely be busier this time, since new voters can register and vote on November 4.

I can’t imagine how difficult it must be in urban areas that have fewer polling places, fewer workers, and shorter hours.

37

Let’s do the math here.

There have been people standing in line for two hours all day to vote. So pretty much, it sounds like as many people voted today as could get in.

From your complaint, it sounds like this has been going on for several days. You mentioned two weeks.

So if enough people will have been standing in line each day to require a two hour wait all day - that’s 12 hours of voting per day. (That’s assuming an 8 hour business day, and figuring they lined up at 9, started voting at 11, and the people that got there at 5 had to wait 2 hours until 7 to finish voting.)

This will go on for ten days (assuming business days only; I don’t know what your area is doing). That’s 120 hours needed for those people to vote.

And you think that it would work having them all vote on one day? Sounds to me like the voting wouldn’t be completed until Nov 8th - and some people would have had to be in that line for 5 days straight.

Either that, or a bunch of them would give up and leave - exactly as has happened in the past.

And your feeling is that the old method is “just fine”, and if voters are not willing to do that, then they’re “lazy”.

:dubious: Well, OK then. I guess you’re entitled to your opinion. And I’m entitled to mine, but I’m afraid I can’t share that with you here. Sounds to me like you’d really prefer that most people didn’t get to vote. You wouldn’t happen to be a McCain or Palin fan, would you? :stuck_out_tongue:

I do understand that it must be extremely irritating to have your workplace clogged up with people for days on end, but the alternative (proven by past experience) is to disenfranchise huge numbers of voters. Obviously, these people are pretty intent on voting - they are standing in line for upwards of two hours - so they’re not just a bunch of lazy bums who happened to drop by because it was convenient.

ETA: FWIW, I can imagine that if I were in your shoes, I’d be bitching about the parking, the hordes, etc. But I can’t imagine thinking that the old way was better.

38

I think it’s a good idea, but it worries me a bit. In our case, my husband is working out of town, so he’s only home on weekends. He could have voted absentee, as we both did in '96 when were on vacation on election. But as it is, he went to the village hall last Saturday and voted then. Took him about ten minutes, which is about what it takes on election day around here. I think it will give more people a chance to vote. I’m not convinced it will cause more people to vote. I know the turnout has been good so far in a lot of places, but I think we’ll have to see what happens when it’s all over. My daughter will either have to take a bit of time off work or vote early, as she often works 11 or 12 hours a day. She should be able to take a little time in the afternoon, though.

What concerns me is the increased time involved. It’s entirely possible for that time to be used for some sort of fiddling with the results. It’s even more possible for reported early results to have an effect on the election as a whole. I’m thinking of 1980, when the results in the eastern parts of the country were reported so decisively that voting in west coast states was affected. I keep hearing results being reported from early voting, and while I think it’s simply from exit polls, people may not realize that. It certainly sounds a lot like the vote is going strongly for Obama, and a lot of those news results make it sound like those are official counts.

I think there should be restrictions on how those results can be reported. I worry a bit about the length of time early voting is allowed.

39

Yes. For very Michael values of Palin.

So, then, let me see if I can sum up the argument that early voting is needed: we have more people than ever and they haven’t added any more hours to Election Day.

If that’s the gist of it, then thanks all for helping. :slight_smile:

40

:smiley: You’ve got me giggling over here.

I really do sympathize with the hassles you’ve got with this, it must be a major pain. I hope you feel like it was worth it in the end.