Why You Should Vote Early and In Person

A lesson from a former election judge

I don’t know if I’ve mentioned it here, but I used to be an Election Judge in Denton County, Texas.  I was a good one, if I may say so.  One time, the Texas Secretary of State’s office sent observers to a number of precincts in my county, including mine.  I found out later that I got one of the highest ratings.  I was passionate about doing elections right in part because I hated sloppy or fraudulent elections with a passion.

Yes, you can imagine how I can rant about how elections are run now.  But that is not the purpose of this post.  I will rant another day and instead encourage you to vote wisely given the current mess.  And, no, I am not going to tell you who to vote for in this post either.

Election procedures vary from state to state.  (For example, is voting in person even an option in Oregon?)  But in most states at least, I encourage you to vote early and in person.  Where’s why.

Don’t trust the mail with your vote.

If you vote by mail, you are giving multiple opportunities for your vote to get “lost.”  The U. S. Mail is pretty good, but it is not perfect.  Not all letters get delivered.

And then once your ballot does get delivered to the vote counters, do you trust them not to “misplace” ballots from addresses that tend to vote Republican?  Do you trust them not to strive to find a technical reason to disqualify your ballot?  From time to time, including in Florida in 2000, Democrats do their worst to disqualify military ballots from overseas.

And procedures to vote by mail can be exacting (as it should be.  Heck vote by mail should not be allowed in most cases. . . . Oh, that’s right, I promised not to rant.).  It is too easy for you to make an error or omission that disqualifies your ballot.

Plus, you can personally supervise more of the voting process when you vote in person.  And honest errors are much easier to correct on the spot.  So if you are physically able, vote in person, not by mail.

Problems with Election Day Voting

You may be intent on voting in person on Election Day.  Well and good.  There are some advantages.  That gives you the maximum time to consider your vote and also allows you to take any late developments into account.  If a candidate suddenly grows horns in the Last Days . . . of the campaign, and you have already voted….  Well, you have already voted.

The problem is if you wait until Election Day to vote, you are increasing the risk that your vote will not be counted at all.  To be exact, you are increasing the risk you will not get around to voting at all.

You do not know what will occur on November 5th.  You or a family member may have a sudden health issue. There could be unexpected demands on your schedule.  There may be severe weather.  Voting on Election Day could turn out to be very difficult, even impossible, for all you know.

By voting on Election Day, you have more time to consider your vote.  But you are also giving Democrats more opportunity to prevent your vote.  Democrats use prolonged Early Voting to play dirty games.  Among those games is impersonating a voter to vote illegally.  So it has happened (though it is rare) that people show up to vote on Election Day only to be told that they have already voted when they have not voted.  Someone fraudulently stole their identity and their vote and voted in their name.

More common is Election Day games by corrupt Democrat election officials. They take advantage of Republicans being more likely to vote on Election Day than Democrats.  Election machines suddenly won’t work.  And, gosh, Republican precincts run out of ballots on Election Day, and it takes hours to get needed ballots to those precincts.  Maracopa County, Arizona and Harris County, Texas have become notorious for such gross negligence at best and likely outright election rigging.

When you vote early (and in person) you reduce the opportunity to be disenfranchised or at least inconvenienced by dirty games and sheer incompetence.  Time is on your side when you vote early.  Is there a problem at the polling station?  You can come back and vote another day.  Are you listed as having voted when you have not?  There is more time to expose that this is going on and more time to resolve it so you can vote.  Even if the Election Judge in your precinct is a good one, there is only so much he/she can do to resolve issues during a busy Election Day.

Voting Early Helps Your Side (and maybe your sanity, too)

A tip on one way get-out-the-vote (GOTV) efforts work.  They focus on those who have not yet voted.  So they get, usually daily, reports on who has voted from election administrators.  (Yes, that is public information in most states at least.)  So they don’t waste time contacting people who have already voted.

You probably already see where I am going with this.  When you early vote in person, not only are you making sure you vote, you are letting GOTV people know that you have voted and that they can turn their efforts elsewhere.  It helps your side in being more effective in getting out the vote.

And, yes, you might get less calls and messages about the election after you early vote. Just letting you know.

So don’t make me pound the table.  Vote early and in person.

And be sure you get registered to vote in time.  Laws on voter registration vary a lot from state to state.  I think in Texas you still have to register at least 30 days before you vote.  So if you are not yet registered to vote where you currently reside, stop procrastinating on that!

And then don’t procrastinate on voting early and in person.  That is the best way to make sure your vote counts.  And it helps your side in getting other people to vote.

Do I like it that some states are already having early voting?  Heck, no.  But I’m not going to rant about that today.  Instead, I’m encouraging you to turn lemons into lemonade.  Vote in person and as early as possible.