Early Voting – Good Bad or Indifferent
Tennessee is a state with early voting, while New Jersey and Pennsylvania, prior Dr. J. haunts, are (or at least were) not early voting states. Indeed, he was grateful that he wasn’t on call on Election Day 2000 and was able to get to the polls and vote despite the 15 mile commute from work to home. Finding coverage to allow him to cast his ballot would have proved a little tricky.
Puter has spoken loudly against early voting in the past, but given Dr. J.’s call schedule and commute as a resident and fellow, he developed an appreciation for the convenience that early voting afforded him. Yes he was aware that a game-changer might occur, but given that he is to the right of most Republicans, it would take quite a game-change for him to regret casting the votes he cast (other than to not vote in a given race).
That was then. Given the strange patterns of voter registration by ACORN during the 2008 campaign, and that in a number of close races (Franken vs. Coleman in 2008 for example) where absentee ballots came crawling out of the woodwork, he has become more circumspect regarding early voting.
While he doesn’t necessarily think it should be abolished, there are simply some people (like Dr. J. in the past) who would benefit from a little flexibility in the poll schedules. Perhaps the Saturday before election day polls would also be open.
John Fund writes a nice article for NRO today on this very topic.
Go read it here!
