Absentee and early voting : trends, promises, and perils / by John C. Fortier.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Fortier, John C.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Absentee voting--United States.

Absentee voting.

United States.

Voting--United States.

Voting.

Physical Description:

ix, 105 pages : illustrations ; 22 cm

Place of Publication:

Washington, DC : AEI Press, 2006.

Summary:

Americans once gathered on the first Tuesday after the first Monday in November to pick the nation's leaders. Election day was a day of civic engagement when neighbors met at the polls and then cast their ballots. In the past twenty-five years, however, America has undergone a revolution in voting unlike anything it has experienced in the first 200 years of its history. We have created a system of many mini-election-days leading up to the main event.

Today nearly a quarter of Americans vote before election day, either by absentee ballot or at early voting places. In 1980, only one in twenty voters voted before election day. What has happened? Has the convenience of absentee or early voting compromised the integrity of the process and weakened a unifying civic experience?

In Absentee and Early Voting: Trends, Promises, and Perils, John Fortier, a research fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, documents the dramatic increase in absentee voting and, more recently the meteoric rise in early voting. He examines the legal and historical reasons for changes in the voting system and the many differences across states. Fortier offers his thoughts about what the changes have meant for the country and where we should go from here.

Contents:

1 A History of Absentee and Early Voting 7

Absentee Voting in the Civil War 7

Absentee Balloting from World War II to the 1960s 11

Absentee Balloting in the 1970s and Early 1980s 13

The Move toward "No-Excuses" and Convenience Absentee Balloting 13

Oregon's Introduction of Vote by Mail 14

Permanent Absentee Ballot Status 14

Early Voting 15

2 The Extent of Absentee and Early Voting and Past and Future Trends 18

Absentee and Early Voting in the 2004 Election 19

How Much Absentee and Early Voting Occurred in 2004 22

Four Categories of States 24

Category 1 States with Little or No Absentee or Early Voting 24

Category 2 High-Absentee States with Little or No Early Voting 27

Category 3 High Early-Voting States 29

Category 4 Mix of High-Absentee and Early Voting 30

When Voters Cast Their Ballots in 2004 31

Substantial Increase in Absentee and Early Voting since 1980 33

Prior to 1980 33

The 1980s-The Beginning of the Rise of Absentee Voting 35

The 1990s-Continued Growth in Absentee Voting 36

Early Voting: The Rise in the 1990s 37

Early Voting Is Growing Even Easter than Absentee Voting 38

3 Absentee and Early Voting: Voter Turnout and Voter Convenience 40

Voter Turnout 40

Voting Absentee and by Mail and Voter Turnout 42

Early Voting and Turnout 45

Convenience in Voting 45

The Popularity of Voting before Election Day 46

Inconvenience as an Obstacle to Voting 46

4 The Pitfalls of Absentee and Early Voting 51

Fraud and Coercion and Absentee Ballots 52

Susceptibility of Absentee Votes to Fraud 54

Absentee Ballots and Coercion 55

Role of Third-Party Intermediaries in Absentee Ballots 56

Disqualifying Absentee Ballots 58

Protections against Fraud for Absentee Ballots 58

Loss of Civic Day of Election 60

Voting before the Campaign Has Ended 61

The Effects of Large-Scale Voting before Election Day 63

Specific Recommendations 70

Recommendations for Low-Absentee States 70

Recommendations for High-Absentee States 72

Recommendations for Early-Voting States 75

Recommendations for Mixed States 77

Appendix I Absentee and Early Voting, 2004 79

Appendix II Voting Before Election Day (percent of total vote) 91.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (p. 97-104) and index.

ISBN:

9780844742472

OCLC:

70707947

Publisher Number:

9780844742472