Voting Early (and Often?)

I am not a great fan of the spreading contagion of early voting. In them-thar olden days, you voted on the first Tuesday after the first Monday in November, and that was basically it--except, of course, for  absentee ballots generally reserved for military serving overseas or people in hospitals or with other medical excuses. No more. Early and absentee voting have been dramatically loosened, and one needs have no particular excuse for either. One can also register and vote on the same day--that's made for abuse.

OK. Despite my antipathy to it, I took advantage of early voting here in North Carolina. It began on Wednesday, October 17 and will run through Saturday, November 3.

I showed up before 8 am on the 17th, and was surprised to find a considerable crowd. I was also surprised to find lots of campaigning right up next to the voting station--this despite signs prohibiting such beyond a certain point. To get into the building, one had to run a gauntlet of people handing you  filled-out recommended ballots, a variety of materials on one or another ballot proposal, and information on candidates for a variety of jobs. Everybody, I want to note, was friendly, and I felt no intimidation. I, however, noticed that ALL of this campaigning was coming from the Democrat side. There was none, not one, pamphleteer supporting Republican or conservative candidates and issues. The ballot itself, I quickly saw, also reflected a lack of Republican ground game. Many slots for local positions, including judges (voting for judges, I find an odd thing) had only a Democrat candidate. Even the sheriff slot had only one candidate, a Democrat. On one judge slot there was one Democrat and two Republicans running--nice way to split the vote, fellows.

To cut this boring story short, I voted only Republican, leaving "D Only" slots blank, and voted exactly opposite of the recommendations for other issues that the pamphleteers had made. One pamphlet had been specially designed to "trigger" me: it was labelled, "For a Progressive North Carolina Vote . . . " and then the recommendations.

As an old election observer, with many elections around the world under my belt, there is no way I could certify our election process as free, fair, and open. Inside, for example, the voting office I was never asked for an ID of any kind--it's expressly prohibited--and merely had to state my name and address, and sign an affidavit that I was who I said I was. The clerk checked my name against the address I gave, and handed me a ballot. That was it.  When I got home, I had in my mailbox an absentee ballot from my old address in California; I added that document to one I had gotten a couple of days earlier from my old address in Virginia, and a voting reminder notice I got last week from my old address in Florida. I did not avail myself of these ballots.

This system is broken, and badly so. It clearly comes from an earlier age when we all knew our neighbors and didn't move so much. It is clearly early 20th century at best. As noted above, it's made for abuse.