We have written often about our objections to early voting particularly vote by mail. Our objection as to the integrity of the vote is primarily based on its increased susceptibility to fraud in all aspects of the process and that it facilitates others applying their “substituted judgement” by manipulating the incapacitated or irresponsible. In our view good messaging on issues is the most effective get-out-the vote effort.
For the most part as practiced, early voting is also a poor exercise of civic duty. It encourages irresponsibility as such voting is generally available weeks before the conclusion of the campaigns, even before the candidates’ first debates, accordingly it promotes a view of the electoral process as irrelevant. It also is more susceptible to threats, hectoring and the instigation of ridiculous fear mongering. We can elaborate on each of these points and have, but that is not the purpose of this post. The acceptance and promotion makes efforts to ensure voting integrity more difficult, playing into the hands of Democrats.
There is no defensible reason to start early voting so early or vote by mail without sufficient reason. The promotion is often defended on the basis that it increases turn-out as if that is a clear feature or even an unassailable virtue. As a feature it presumes that the early voters a party hectors into voting don’t split their ticket in the comfort of home. Regardless, the excuses fail in light of good government shortcomings and, given alternative uses for time and resources, is wanting as to provable cost benefit.
In our judgement, it has mostly involved wasted breath and been a make-work boondoggle by party apparat trying to appear useful. The gold-star results are for the most part from people dedicated to voting anyway, substituting their vote by mail for voting in person. It can be counterproductive for two reasons: because it waists resources more productively used, and arguably because it reduces turn-out for sociological or psychological reasons as postulated in a University of Wisconsin study linked to below. It is also an embarrassing use of resources from a good governance perspective.
As regards this latter point consider the fast-moving developments in the presidential race to be decided later today. The surge in the past two weeks is with Donald Trump but millions of people will have voted for Hillary before being affected by the aura of revelations causing that surge. The aura of vote early before you change your mind is an insult to good government.
The chart below is from our veritaspac.com study of voting behavior in Scott County in 2014. It provides some insight challenging arguments early voting efforts increase turn-out, a supposed feature of early voting availability and get out the vote efforts. Arguably it also challenges its particular usefulness to Republicans.
The table compares figures for the 12 most “rural” Scott County precincts and the 10 most Republican “city” precincts. Note that some of the more rural precincts had as high a Republican registration as the city precincts. The study was done in part to investigate the presumption that the claimed convenience of early voting increases turnout, in which case one would expect relatively higher voting by absentee in the rural precincts compared to the city precincts due to supposed convenience and proximity issues. Other elements to the possible negative aspects of early voting were also revealed by extending the study to straight ticket voting, something presumably desirable justifying party promotion of absentee voting.
In order to avoid eye strain, the chart can be viewed more comfortably as follows: For Windows-based PC’s place the cursor on the table and drag it to the computer screen desktop. Double click on it and, depending on your version of Windows, something like Picture and Fax Viewer will engage and the table will pop-out and be expandable. For Mac computers — place the cursor on the table and drag it to the desktop. Double-click the thumbnail image and Preview should open with a large version or go to Preview and open it.
The source of the data is the Scott County Auditor’s office and Iowa Secretary of State office regarding the 2014 general Election. Percentage figures are calculated by the author. The nomenclature for the columns should be self-explanatory for those who are intrigued and investigate such statistics.
The total /average summation figures for the two categories of precincts indicates that the availability of absentee voting is not a factor for the more presumably inconvenienced rural precincts. Turnout (TO) for both Democrats and Republicans is greater overall than in the city precincts, in spite of the closeness of various satellite voting options in Davenport/Bettendorf and they have less absentee voting.
Comparing straight ticket Democrat voting on election day (Dem Strt EDay ) with Democrat straight ticket voting absentee (Dem Strt Abs) we see that for both categories of precincts of straight ticket Democrat voters, straight ticket voting is greater when voting absentee but not so for Republicans or not as much depending on category of precinct. As a whole Democrats in this study split their vote at a higher rate when they wait to vote on election day. Republicans vote straight ticket at a comparatively greater rate on election day.
We believe our analysis is supported and enriched by this University of Wisconsin study by professors Burden, Canon, Mayer and Moynihan: Election Laws, Mobilization, and Turnout: The Unanticipated Consequences of Election Reform.
This post is intended to be supplemented. R Mall
