The Explosion of Vote-By-Mail Ballots
Imagine as a candidate being able to wrap up a supporter's vote a month early, eliminating the possibility of them changing their minds. Well, it's starting to become a reality in many states. Thousands of voters have already cast primary ballots in Florida, Missouri, Georgia, Illinois, New Jersey and New York. And Californians will receive their ballots this week, giving them almost an entire month to vote.
Web site electionline.org tracks these electoral changes and it says that thirty-one U.S. states now let voters cast ballots in person before election day and 29 allow mail-in balloting - with no excuses required. Reuters reports that more than 40 percent of Californians are expected to cast their ballots before the actual Feb. 5 primary date.
It's a trend that favors candidates with lots of funds at their disposal. Candidates like Sen. Hillary Clinton and Sen. Barack Obama run ads and phone banks for weeks in advance of the poll date, trying to get voters to cast their early ballots for them. But running ads and phone banks costs lots of money, meaning candidates like John Edwards, or Mike Huckabee on the Republican side, face more of an uphill battle to attract these early voters.
This voteballoting also helps create the opportunity for early exit polls. The votes don't actually get counted until election day, but there is nothing to stop candidates or new organizations from calling people who've already voted and asking them for whom they voted.
9:43 AM ET | 01- 8-2008 | permalink
