[EL] Perils of Early Voting

[Rob Richie]

Relating to Rob Kelner's post below, I think a certain period of early
voting (a week, for example, with absentee voting for those might have
trouble getting to polls during the week) is hard to oppose, but I did want
to flag an important statistic from this year: there were nearly 750,000
votes counted for presidential candidates this spring after they had
already dropped out and before Donald Trump became the last active
Republican candidate. You can see all the state by state numbers at our
 spreadsheet introduced and presented at http://www.PopularVote2016.com

The real number of such votes is higher, as some states don't report votes
cast for withdrawn candidates -- in New York, say, they didn't even report
statewide the ballots cast for Ben Carson who was still on the Election Day
ballot, let alone the much bigger group of candidates sent to overseas
voters.

We at FairVote suggest such early voters be given the right to cast a
ranked choice ballot, with their ballot counting for their next choice
among active candidates if their first choice has withdrawn -- just as five
states do for overseas voters in federal elections that might go to a
runoff.  At a minimum, it could be done for UOCAVA voters, who are mailed
ballots more than 7 weeks before their state's contests - a policy brief
and model statute is posted here:
http://www.fairvote.org/the_policy_guide#ranked_choice_ballots_for_military_and_overseas_voters

Rob Richie

On Tue, May 31, 2016 at 10:39 AM, Rick Hasen <rhasen at law.uci.edu> wrote:

<SNIP>

“Trump and the Perils of Early Voting” <http://electionlawblog.org/?p=83229>
Posted on May 30, 2016 2:47 pm <http://electionlawblog.org/?p=83229> by Rick
Hasen <http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

Rob Kelner:
<https://robkelner.com/2016/05/30/trump-and-the-perils-of-early-voting/>

Over the last decade, operatives in both political parties have quietly
agitated to change state laws in order to permit early voting.  These
efforts gained traction, and many states now allow citizens to cast their
vote days or weeks early.  In a few states, voting in the general election
will begin this year a full six weeks before election day.  A small coterie
of critics have warned that early voting is a threat to our political
system.  This year may be the year that the threat materializes, revealing
the serious unintended consequences of early voting laws.

For my own views on this question, see The New Conservative Assault on
Early Voting
<http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/politics/2014/02/the_new_conservative_assault_on_early_voting_more_republicans_fewer_voters.html>
.

-- 
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Rob Richie
Executive Director, FairVote
6930 Carroll Avenue, Suite 240
Takoma Park, MD 20912
rr at fairvote.org  (301) 270-4616  http://www.fairvote.org
*FairVote Facebook <https://www.facebook.com/FairVoteReform>*   *FairVote
Twitter <https://twitter.com/fairvote>*   My Twitter
<https://twitter.com/rob_richie>

Thank you for considering a *donation <http://www.fairvote.org/donate>*
<http://www.fairvote.org/donate>to support our reform vision
<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U50uJohIw4c>.
(Note: Our Combined Federal Campaign number is 10132.)
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://webshare.law.ucla.edu/Listservs/law-election/attachments/20160602/b432158e/attachment.html>