A reality based independent journal of observation & analysis, serving the Flathead Valley & Montana since 2006. © James Conner.

25 April 2017 — 1429 mdt

Don’t mark your congressional absentee ballots before 18 May

Absentee ballots are being mailed today, enabling voters to start voting in the 25 May special congressional election almost 30 days in advance of the end of the election. Ten years ago, I observed that this is not a good idea:

[Allowing voting 30 days before the end of the election] turns election day into election month (or some extended period). If ballots are cast during a long period of time instead of on a single day, voters are no longer making a decision after having been exposed to the same events. They are no longer applying their knowledge and beliefs to a shared set of facts. I know that reality departs a bit from that ideal, but the principle is sound and I think we should make every attempt to observe it.

Suppose, for example, that you are on trial for murder…falsely accused, of course. The prosecutor begins a powerful presentation, but you know the facts and law are on your side, and you look forward to presenting your case and exposing the prosecutor as a witch hunter. After what seems an eternity, the prosecution rests — but before you can begin your defense, the judge turns to the jury and says, “Now that you have half of the facts, you know all you need to know to make an intelligent decision. You may cast your vote any time you like. Just write ‘guilty’ or ‘not guilty’ and mail your ballot to the bailiff. Don’t bother returning to court unless you want to. We’ll let you know if we need a second ballot.”

Writing in The Hill on 4 November 2016, Eugene Kontorovich, a deeply conservative professor of constitutional law at Northwestern University’s Pritzker School of Law made the same point:

Consider that jury voting is certainly much more costly in terms of lost time than political voting, and the requirement of jury deliberations weighs heaviest on the poor, those who depend on daily wages. Yet it would be absurd to let jurors skip parts of the deliberations — or even the full presentation of evidence by one side — because they have come to a firm conclusion before the trial is over.

I expect to vote for Rob Quist, the xenophobic mendacity of his campaign’s propaganda honchos notwithstanding, but I’ll make my final decision on 25 May when I vote in person at my precinct’s polling place. As I noted ten years ago:

Government is a community affair, and I think an election should be an eyeball-to-eyeball community event. We vote as individuals, but I think we should cast our votes in the presence of our neighbors to remind ourselves that our votes have consequences for others as well as for ourselves. Going to our neighborhood polling place is one of the glues that hold our communities together — and it’s a much stronger glue than the adhesive on an envelope or the back of a stamp.