AT LAST! A JONAH GOLDBERG COLUMN WHICH MAKES SENSE
Mr. Goldberg is not my go-to-guy for wise political calculation. He is a hardcore NeverTrumper.
While he rails against both of this election’s candidates, Goldberg seems not at all aware of, or concerned in the slightest, that if his vigorous exertions during this election season are fully rewarded, he can rightfully claim that he helped put Hillary Clinton in the Oval Office. That’s not a journalistic legacy I’d want to claim, Jonah!
Anyway, this is one Jonah Goldberg column that I can agree with and can recommend…always with some caution when it comes to its author.
The piece makes a very good case for what is wrong and destructive about the “early voting craze”.
Either the political parties are going to have to face facts about the negative effects of people casting ballots for candidates of which they are not adequately informed about, or realize that carried to its logical extreme (illogical as most things political are), the early voting for the next election will begin after the polls close the night of the last election.
How will the Parties handle their campaigns in that event?
Yes, that’s a bit of an exaggeration, but consider the points Goldberg makes in this column and use your own imagination to consider just where this nuttiness is heading. DLH
By Jonah Goldberg writing at National Review today (excerpts)
Convenience should not determine when Americans vote. Let’s work backward. Less than a week before the election, the Wall Street Journal and Fox News’ Bret Baier reported that the Clinton Foundation has been under investigation for “pay-for-play” allegations for over a year — and that the Department of Justice may have been trying to monkey-wrench the effort. Eleven days before the election, FBI director James Comey announced that he was reopening the inquiry into Hillary Clinton’s e-mails. A few days before that, WikiLeaks dropped a bombshell of a hacked memo showing the full extent of “Clinton Inc.” — the tawdry, tacky, and some would argue criminal web of for-profit, nonprofit, and political entities that make up the Clinton empire. A couple weeks before that, NBC News released a tape of Donald Trump describing how he likes to sexually assault women.
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And you know what else happened during all of this? People have been voting. A lot.
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The standard argument against widespread early voting is that it encourages many people to make their decisions without important information available to the voters who wait until Election Day. That’s really not debatable, so early-voting supporters concede the point and then say it just doesn’t matter. They note that the people most likely to cast early votes are committed partisans, immune to new facts and information. There’s surely some truth to that, but as the scale of early voting increases with each year, it must also be less and less true every year.
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But my main problem with early voting is different. Every day we hear pious actors, activists, and politicians talk about the solemn and sacred duty to vote, and yet everyone wants to make voting easier and more convenient. Many still dream of the most cockamamie idea of all: online voting, so we can make choosing presidents as easy as buying socks on Amazon. This gets human nature exactly backward. Nothing truly important, never mind sacred and solemn, should be treated as a trivial convenience.
Churches that ask more of the faithful do better at attracting and retaining congregants. The Marines get the best and most committed recruits because they have higher standards. Elite schools demand more from students and get more as a result. No wonder one study found that early voting actually lowers turnout because it makes Election Day seem like a less-special event. Of course we shouldn’t put up any insurmountable obstacles to voting. But if we want citizens to value their vote, why are we constantly lowering the price?
Read more at: http://www.nationalreview.com/article/441772/hillary-clinton-fbi-investigation-donald-trump-video-cast-doubt-mass-early-voting
