Early voting has become increasingly popular. In stead of everyone voting on the same day, up to a month is given in some states over which people can vote. In Nevada, for example, 2/3 of all votes were cast before election day. This is not the single voice of a people, even in the most fantastical sense of the Progressive utopians, when different people vote at different times according to the ever shifting opinions over a period of weeks or a month.
Eugene Kontorovich and John McGinnis over at Politico further make the case against early voting:
“For all its conveniences, early voting threatens the basic nature of citizen choice in democratic, republican government. In elections, candidates make competing appeals to the people and provide them with the information necessary to be able to make a choice. Citizens also engage with one another, debating and deliberating about the best options for the country. Especially in an age of so many nonpolitical distractions, it is important to preserve the space of a general election campaign — from the early kickoff rallies to the last debates in October — to allow voters to think through, together, the serious issues that face the nation.”
For all its convenience, such heavy reliance on early voting benefits those political parties or not-so-public coalitions who have organizing power to extract their preferred. Rather than further democracy, early voting retards it.
