Early Voting

Over at Althouse there’s a conversation about how many groups moved to the GOP this election cycle. People were talking about turnout, which seemed lower in most cases than the last election. It certainly was so in my precinct. It seemed good at the time I voted, but it was down considerably from 2008.

I commented there:

I think we ought to get rid of early voting altogether.

Early voting may have suppressed turnout on both sides. The media kept showing long lines at early voting locations and the media kept trying to guess who was “winning” the early vote.

This may have kept many people home on election day. They didn’t want to deal with long lines (and how many of them would actually be there? The media only reported on the long lines – they didn’t report on the many (I’m sure) locations without long lines. Just as we hear about plane crashes but not the successful landings that most make.

With the guesses as to who was “winning” the early vote, some people may have decided it was over already and didn’t go vote.

Steve Hayward has some thoughts at A Disquieting Thought on Powerline.

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