Election day approaches.
No, wait. Election days are already here. ?We are right in the middle of early voting.
In 2012, about a third of the total vote was cast early. Next door in Iowa it was 44%. More early voting is predicted this year. It's convenient, so what's the big deal? Well, it is a big deal, and getting bigger.
Early voting poses both procedural and substantive issues.
Procedure first: Polling must be adjusted to reflect intentions, not votes already cast. Campaign spending, which reaches a crescendo by election day, could be wasted on early voters. ?Two of the three Presidential debates occur after millions of citizens have already voted. A game-changing event -- the fabled "October Surprise" -- would mean nothing to early voters.
But we must consider the potential substantive issue. Some studies suggest depressed voter turnout. Why? Instead of a uniform national decision by voters at the same time reflecting a collective judgment of the same facts, early voting generates a rolling, cumulative set of casual individual acts based on different and changing facts.
Put bluntly, early voting threatens to tarnish the significance of the act of voting. Instead of enhancing turnout, early voting may provide one more example of the law of unintended consequences.
I'm Bob Evans, and that is my perspective.
