War Against Early Voting Misplaced

My cousins always had Christmas on the morning of Christmas Eve. My uncle was an airline employee and he worked nearly every Christmas. It seemed alien to me when I was little — you have Christmas on Christmas. You can't do it on any other day.

Apparently my child shelf and the current editorial board of the Post and Courier are in concert about traditions. In an editorial Monday, the paper called on readers to "Reject Early Voting."

I'm a big voting fan. My profile page here at Patch shares my opinion on the topic: "I won't tell you who to vote for, but I will tell you to vote." I'm also an Election Day voter. Since I work dawn to well-past dusk on Election Day, I have the opportunity to vote early. But I don't.

I get up and meet the poll workers at the door at 7 a.m., happy to stand in line with some neighbors to do my civic duty. That said, I see early voting as an positive on strengthening the voting process and furthering our Democracy.

The P&C make one good point — you shouldn't vote early if you don't know who you're voting for. Absentee polls opened Monday, but many of our local candidates haven't had a chance to meet in debates yet. Our presidential candidates still have two more shots to wow television audiences.

But, if you know who you want to vote for, why not vote early. Get out of the line on Election Day. It would mean a shorter wait for the rest of us, probably making the whole experience more attractive to folks who refuse to wait in long lines.

It would also help address something that we've been hearing a lot about this year: alleged voter fraud. If we could get 40 percent of our South Carolina voters to visit the polls early, that's going to give poll managers more time to closely review voter registration and IDs.

The weakest argument the P&C makes is that Election Day has a nostalgia that can't be recreated any other day of the year.

"Early voting also diminishes the civic importance of Election Day, as the central event in a democracy," the editors write. "Going to the polls serves as a common reaffirmation by the voters of what sustains our system of government."

Voting is inconvenient no matter when you do it. The fact that someone would take the time out of their day, whether it's Oct. 15 or Nov. 6, should be enough to prove they see the value of elections, whether its Election Day or Election Month.