Obama's Early-Voting Advantage

Obama's Early-Voting Advantage

For the record, I think early voting is a pretty lousy idea, at least when it starts more than a few days out. Campaigns are intricately-timed affairs--when run well, they have beginnings, middles, and ends, almost like a good narrative--and candidates can't possibly execute them effectively if they're ending at different times for different voters.

Unfortunately, several states now let people vote weeks before Election Day. As Amy Sullivan (my wife) notes in her recent piece on the subject, Virginia allowed some people to start voting last Friday, and half a dozen states kick off early voting next week. So a non-trivial portion of the electorate could end up casting a vote before there's a single presidential debate. It's ludicrous.

Having said that, I can see this preposterously early voting benefiting Obama. For one thing, he gets to start locking in votes while the financial crisis is topic A and has voters fleeing the GOP. Second, he gets to lock in votes before a possible October surprise--whether it's a national security crisis ginned up by the White House or some below-the-belt ad from McCain (probably Wright or Ayers related). Third, mechanical changes like this tend to favor the better-organized campaign, since they're in a better position to exploit any new opportunities. That's almost certainly the Obama campaign in this case. I'd guess Obama will do a better job identifying potential early voters and getting them to the polls,* which, given the extremely long early-voting window, could result in a significant advantage.

*More precisely, I'd guess Obama will have a bigger organizational advantage over McCain in early voting than he will on Election Day, though I'd expect him to have an advantage in both cases.

http://blogs.tnr.com/tnr/blogs/the_stump/archive/2008/09/21/obama-s-early-voting-advantage.aspx

Anything that boosts the number of people who vote, is to me a good thing.

For people who have very busy lives, having to vote on one day only is not good. Too much can happen that prevents them from getting to the polls.

My husband and I have been using an absentee ballot here in Colorado, for years. Much more convenient.

All votes. We get our ballots about 3 weeks before election day. We mark them at our leisure. They can be mailed in, or, if we wait until the last few days and want to make sure they get there on time, dropped off at local drop-boxes up until the polls close (mine is at the local library.)

If I have no questions, and my mind is made up, I'll mark my ballot and mail it off the same day I get it, nullifying the campaign efforts the last 3 weeks, in my case.

If I'm undecided about something, I may hold off until election day, and drop my ballot off at the library.

I wish all states would go to this system. No touch screens. Paper ballots that can be hand counted to verify the vote count. No worries about getting voters to the polls, or allowing them to vote when they get there. No racing through traffic, in bad weather, to reach the polls before they close at the end of a long work day.

Edited to add:

An added benefit, for presidential primaries, is that one national vote counting day could be announced. If no ballots are opened or counted until that day, it doesn't matter which states go first. We could have a more reasonable state primary schedule, and each vote would be weighted the same. Early states wouldn't be limiting later states' choices. Even better if the caucus states would either vote instead of caucus, or hold their caucuses on the national vote counting day, so that their results didn't influence the vote, either.

Getting your ballot three weeks in advance changes the timing of certain campaign events. Since both sides know this, it just moves some of the big ad blitzes up three weeks. And it really helps the GOTV efforts. As soon as the local election bureau receives your ballot, your name is checked off the list. These lists are available to the campaigns which then allow the canvassers and phone bankers to call only those people whose votes have not been received yet. Instead of a massive GOTV drive on election day, the effort is spread out over three weeks. This is really win-win: I always vote the day I receive my ballot so I do not get multiple calls every day from various campaigns reminding me to vote.

I don't know if national presidential primaries, or general elections, take different state schedules into consideration. I know that I DID get phone calls about my primary vote all the way up to election day, despite the fact I'd already mailed my ballot.

I got some calls from my professional association about state and local stuff, as well.

campaign strategy has evolved, no doubt for the worse, aroud the notion that the only time your opinion matters is on election day. hence the concern about an "october surprise", slimey news leaks (true or otherwise) at the last minute, etc.

shrub (rove, really, though it goes back to atwater) very effectively used hot button "wedge issues", carefully choreographed to get their base all riled up on election day so that they thought their vote was all about gay marriage or flag-burning or anything other than a real federal issue (gay marriage is of consequence to many people, but it's a matter for states, not presidents).

in the last election, bush was above 50% of bush/kerry vote only for the week of the election. he was below before and after. perfectly timed. but is that any way to run a democratic election?


the people should decide how best to chose their president, and then campaign strategy should evolve around it. if the people want mail-in voting, then it's up to the campaigns to adapt.