Reasons for and against early voting?
October 17, 2024 9:57 AM   Subscribe

What are the strategic reasons for and against early voting? Am I helping or hurting my party if I vote as early as I can?

I saw this page at Ballotpedia, but many of the quotes all seem pretty stale. And this previously is a dozen years old.

I imagine it shortens the line on Election Day, and it allows my party to brag about how well they're doing in the last few weeks before the election.

Are there any credible (i.e., non-GOP-fear-mongering bullshit) arguments against it? Or should I head down to Town Hall ASAP?
posted by wenestvedt to Law & Government (26 answers total) 2 users marked this as a favorite
 
I can't think of any strategic reasons it would matter either way. Not all states start processing and counting mail ballots early, but even where they do, I don't think the campaigns/parties are supposed to know anything about the results until Election Day.

The only legitimate reason I can think of is the chance of some out-of-left-field event making you regret your voting choice (your candidate rips off their face to reveal that they are secretly an extraterrestrial, they drop dead of a heart attack, a personal scandal makes you realize they are a terrible person, etc.).
posted by AndrewInDC at 10:08 AM on October 17, 2024 [8 favorites]


Best answer: For early voting (from my local DNC HQ): it helps the campaign direct resources towards registered Democrats and Independents who haven't voted yet. This likely doesn't matter if you're not in a swing state (or any close local races), but if you're in a swing state it definitely helps.
posted by coffeecat at 10:10 AM on October 17, 2024 [13 favorites]


I've seen several people say you stop getting spammed with election-related texts if you vote early.
posted by toastyk at 10:18 AM on October 17, 2024 [8 favorites]


Best answer: I vote early because what if I get hit by a bus tomorrow and am put into a medically induced coma until the end of November. This could be my only chance!
posted by phunniemee at 10:20 AM on October 17, 2024 [37 favorites]


I'm generally a fan of early voting (mostly to have it done and stop worrying about it) but I have one serious concern: In 2002 my preferred Senate candidate (Paul Wellstone) died 11 days before the election. I'm unclear on what happens if I early vote and then my candidate dies after I vote but before the actual election day... is there a well-known standard policy for this?
posted by eraserbones at 10:26 AM on October 17, 2024 [1 favorite]


I'm worried about violence and intimidation at polling places. Plus, a mail in ballot tells me when it is received and I love that.
posted by tiny frying pan at 10:44 AM on October 17, 2024 [2 favorites]


I just did a quick search about what happens if the candidate dies after early votes are cast and the answer is: in MN you change your vote up to two weeks before the election. If the candidate dies less than two weeks out (as Wellstone did) or you live somewhere other than MN, then... it's a goddamned mess.
posted by eraserbones at 10:45 AM on October 17, 2024 [1 favorite]


Am I helping or hurting my party if I vote as early as I can?

It kinda depends. With early voting, you're casting a vote at a time and in a manner that is more convenient for you, which helps if voting in a fixed location on a specific day would make you less likely or able to cast that vote because of extenuating life circumstances like work/childcare/whatever. If you were going to vote either way, it doesn't help any more than voting at a polling place would.

Another benefit, at least for me where I live, is that early voting is great because it's trackable. In my jurisdiction, I get texts the day my ballot is mailed to me, the night my ballot is collected from the drop box, and at the time it is accepted and counted at the elections office. So I always know where it is in its lifecycle, which is just another safeguard that helps me know my vote both counts and is counted.
posted by pdb at 10:59 AM on October 17, 2024 [2 favorites]


It's the same principle as why money now is better than money later. If you get it now, you have it. You might not get it later. Once you've voted, that vote counts, and the campaign can focus resources on other people who haven't already voted.

Mailed my ballot yesterday!
posted by number9dream at 11:10 AM on October 17, 2024 [5 favorites]


Best answer: I volunteer with my local Dems, and our canvassing system (Votebuilder) gets occasional updates so we know who has already voted. When we make our lists for canvassing/calling/texting etc, we exclude people who have already voted so our efforts and money only go towards gettable votes. I think it's updated weekly, and possibly daily as we get closer to election day. I encourage everyone I know to vote early.
posted by little king trashmouth at 11:10 AM on October 17, 2024 [10 favorites]


It helps me a lot with my anxiety. I have a hard time with traffic and crowds. It allows me the ability to exercise my right to vote without impacting my mental health.
posted by ChumbawambaTimesFour at 11:26 AM on October 17, 2024 [3 favorites]


My state (IL) has these awesome big yellow ballot boxes and I vote early in them partially to support their use. Same logic for any early voting, using it demonstrates its utility. If almost nobody used it, that could be used as an argument to shut it down.
posted by SaltySalticid at 11:46 AM on October 17, 2024 [5 favorites]


It can help build enthusiasm too. The reports the other day that certain states have had crazy high early voting turnout, esp among my preferred party, helped me feel better about the polls saying it's too close to call. Granted the parties don't want to risk complacency, esp not a 2016 scenario where some didn't vote because absolutely no one, except a few outliers, truly thought Trump would win.
posted by beaning at 12:09 PM on October 17, 2024 [2 favorites]


Best answer: Voting early is all upside. It's just as little king trashmouth says: it helps the GOTV effort so they can focus on lower propensity voters. Help rack up the numbers and win it early and build momentum. Voting as early as you can in your state is the best thing you can do.
posted by gigondas at 12:23 PM on October 17, 2024 [4 favorites]


California has a really nice mail in vote system and lots of people vote early. You get a note that the ballot is in the mail, they delivered, then you fill it out and the next day or two you get a note that USPS has picked it up, they a note that they have tallied your vote. With 38 million people in California, and a lot of them voting through this system, the California vote is called by the day or two after the formal election date. Compared with a state like Georgia, where the count is hand delivered and tallied, we don't know their electoral votes and senator and down ballot results for a week or so, which can make it a needless nail biter, in addition to the fact that in person voters can be intimidated and claimed to be fraudster voters. I personally hate standing in hours long lines to vote as well.

Also, some people just want to vote for the winning candidate, so if they find out one candidate is on track to lose, they vote for the other winning candidate. People have some pretty daft methods for deciding the vote. One guy told me he wasn't voting for Obama because his middle name was Heussein. It's terrifying.
posted by effluvia at 12:32 PM on October 17, 2024


Best answer: It increases the likelihood of you getting to vote. People get stomach bugs or their car dies, family members go into early labor and need you to care for their kids, power outages and hurricanes happen, voter shenanigans are unlikely but can happen. (One of the few elections I missed as an adult was because I went into slightly early labor—that one was not completely out of left field, but I foolishly hadn’t even considered it!)
posted by tchemgrrl at 12:34 PM on October 17, 2024 [7 favorites]


I’m in a swing state and voting early has been a great new option - I love letting my local campaigns focus on people who haven’t voted yet, I love that the texts drastically slow down, I love keeping the lines short on Election Day, and I love that it’s *done* and I don’t have to think about it anymore.

I can imagine a case where if I were really torn between two candidates I might wait until the last minute for one of them to clinch the deal. But it’s been a while since I had a race like that on any of my ballots.
posted by Stacey at 12:38 PM on October 17, 2024 [1 favorite]


Best answer: What phunniemee said. I was at a funeral yesterday where one of the speakers said: "I sure hope he already sent in his early voting ballot". His son was sad to say he didn't.
posted by BoscosMom at 1:39 PM on October 17, 2024 [1 favorite]


I'm in PA and I vote in person. The envelopes for mail-in ballots can't even be opened until Election Day. Some states allow pre-processing of the mailed ballots which saves a lot of time when it comes time to count, but the Republicans in PA refused to allow that into the law. In 2020 it took several days before all the ballots were counted in PA.

For me it's a very personal decision and I'll never vote by mail as long as the current law stands. OTOH, I can walk to my polling place and I vote at times when it's not crowded. If I was still working and my polling place had long lines after work, I might have a different decision.
posted by daikon at 2:18 PM on October 17, 2024 [1 favorite]


Best answer: So people are conflating early voting with mail-in or absentee voting. There is zero downside to early voting at your board of election or town hall or wherever early voting is set up in your area.

There are some potential downsides to mail-in/absentee voting, but it is so, so very dependent on the state where you live. In Kansas, for example, virtually all the mail goes to other states for processing; they only have I think one processing center for the entire state IN the state, so the mail goes out of state before it goes to its intended recipient in Kansas...sometimes even if the recipient is across the street from the post office. So in that case there's a time issue that makes me a little nervous. And there is absolutely no guarantee that the post office will 100% postmark your mail-in/absentee ballot correctly. In Pennsylvania in 2016 there were something like 1000 ballots that didn't have postmarks at all so they weren't counted. Is that a major thing in the grand scheme? Maybe, maybe not, but dammit I want my vote for sure counted. And then there's ballot drop boxes, which I think are pretty darned perfect (except in STUPID OHIO where I LIVE because the STUPID REPUBLICAN leaders have made it illegal for a family member or medical aide to drop someone's ballot in the box for them. I mean SERIOUSLY.).

All that to say! I am still a proponent of mail-in/absentee voting! It's amazing! It nearly always works! But I'm a MUCH bigger fan of in-person voting, whether that be early or on election day.

(my bona fides: I was an elected official in the Democratic Party in Ohio and a current grad student in political science.)
posted by cooker girl at 2:39 PM on October 17, 2024 [7 favorites]


It depends on the jurisdiction of course but being dead doesn't stop you from being elected someplaces. John Ashcroft famously lost re-election for his Missouri senate seat to Governor Mel Carnahan who had died 3 weeks before. His widow was appointed.
posted by Mitheral at 4:33 PM on October 17, 2024 [1 favorite]


Best answer: Once you've voted, your chance of voting is 100%. Until you've voted, it is less than 100%, regardless of how committed you are to voting. Death is not the only potential hurdle.
posted by biffa at 3:09 AM on October 18, 2024 [1 favorite]


For some people with disabilities, early voting can be the thing that makes voting possible. Not all disabilities or people living with them are the same, of course, but as someone with mobility issues, I find voting in person to be quite literally painful. Early voting reduces the pain - easier to park closer so less walking; less time standing in the queue; if my migraine is bad, less exposure to things that exacerbate it, etc.

I know plenty of other people who have similar issues and who live in places where absentee/postal voting is not an option. In the US where voting is not mandatory, early voting can literally make the difference between voting and not voting at all. It's not just a convenience.
posted by Athanassiel at 12:46 PM on October 18, 2024 [2 favorites]


Response by poster: You convinced me -- I voted today! Thanks for helping me decide, y'all: I feel like I made a well-informed choice.
posted by wenestvedt at 12:54 PM on October 18, 2024 [7 favorites]


I see that you already decided, but I'll just throw in one downside to early voting: you could change your mind about how you want to cast your vote, based on events that take place between now and the election.

Without getting into my specific politics, I am waiting until as close to the election as possible to see if the presidential candidate I dislike least changes their stance on an issue I find dispositive, from one that makes it feel morally impossible for me to vote for them, to one that allows me to vote for them. If they don't move on this issue, I'm voting third party/write-in. But I want to give them 15 more days, in hopes that they are moved by their voters to change their stance, and say something that allows me to cast a vote for them.

Also, a local official where I live got indicted recently, and they're up for reelection this fall, so I want to see if there are any updates in that case (for example, other officials implicated) before I vote.
posted by decathecting at 11:50 AM on October 21, 2024


Ok, one more reason for holding onto your ballot - drop boxes are getting set on fire.
posted by toastyk at 8:20 AM on October 29, 2024


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