Something special is going on in two Ohio Democratic strongholds: Cuyahoga and Franklin counties.I track on this handy web page that other places around the country - including other Ohio counties - are so far reporting low single digit early voting rates. In stark contrast, over 112,000 votes have already been cast in these two Ohio counties. As a comparison, this represents over ten percent of all ballots cast in the 2006 election in these counties, with still some time to go.
I spoke with local election officials in both counties to understand what is fueling their early voting. They attribute this phenomenon to two factors. First, Ohio recently adopted no-fault absentee voting, which increased the pool of eligible early voters. Second, local election officials in these counties decided to mail an absentee ballot request form to every registered voter. The response has clearly been enthusiastic.
But Vote by Mail can't possibly be a good idea, right Andrew Sullivan?
Tim Lee has tweeted that "voting by mail is a huge privacy and security risk, and states should be discouraging it a lot more." He elaborates on his blog:
Imagine if an employer, who everyone knew to be a Republican, required his employees to request absentee ballots and show them to him before they were submitted. Think of an abusive husband who insists that he and his wife fill out their ballots together. Or imagine a political operative going around a low-income neighborhood paying people $50 if they let him fill out their ballots for them. This kind of corruption is very hard for voting officials to detect. And more insidious, voters themselves may not even realize that it’s unethical.I worry about this too. There's also the issue of losing a collective decision at the same time on the same day. Things change, events occur, the world moves. It makes sense to me that an electoral decision is more coherent when it is made simultaneously over a single day, than stretched out over weeks or even more than a month.
Now, there are some circumstances, such as soldiers stationed overseas, where absentee voting is unavoidable. But traditionally, to get an absentee ballot you had to give a specific reason that you would be unable to make it to your regular polling place on election day. But in the last couple of decades a growing number of states are dropping these restrictions, allowing anyone to vote by mail without giving a reason. And the states of Washington and Oregon are moving towards mail-in voting as the default option. Although this is moderately more convenient for voters (and election officials!), the effective abandonment of the secret ballot is too high a price to pay.
Andrew's concerns...frankly, are a little ridiculous. It's nice to live as a blogger, with a staff of three, where despite the fact that you have a job and a live, your time is pretty much your own.
A lot of Americans don't or can't live like that, and so the chore of voting is usually crammed either early in the morning or late at night where you run the risk of getting cut off. In either case, the slightest headwind, rain storm, missed alarm clock can cause a person not to vote. We're supposed to be making voting easier, not more difficult.
We have two absolutely stupid requirements we put on our elections. One, is to vote on the same day. Two, is to have the results (the vote count) ready by that same night.
If Andrew really wants to live like that, may I suggest turning Election Day into a damn National Holiday. Everyone has the day off. Stores are mostly closed, and people can have the time to go vote and have their votes counted. When the polls close, the bars can open. And what do you expect the Chamber of Commerce's reaction will be to that idea?
Open this thing up. Give people more choices of where and how to vote. Allow them to cast ballots in more places, like Grocery Stores and Shopping Malls. Give them a full week to vote, and allow voting on Weekends.
We have the technology. Why aren't we using it?
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