Joelle Lang-Fredman
WMAL.com
WASHINGTON — (WMAL) While early voting may be convenient, research proves that it does not increase voter turnout and that it is a big expense for local governments and political candidates.
This year, over 730,000 Maryland residents participated in early voting, but Todd Eberly, chair of the political science department at St Mary’s College of Maryland, said that this does not mean more ballots will be cast in this election.
Eberly said that early voting is nothing more than a convenience.
“Early voting doesn’t in any way boost turnout,” Eberly said. “All you are doing is cannibalizing people who otherwise would have voted on election day.”
Early voting is also an expense ordeal. Local governments need to provide facilities and staff to manage voting centers leading up to election day and candidates have to spend more time and resources trying to get people to vote through the early voting period.
“If you’re trying to organize and coordinate a get-out-the-vote effort on a single day that’s one thing, but if you are trying to spread it across perhaps two weeks over a differing group of states, it takes more resources,” Eberly said. “if you’re not a fan of all of the money that’s in politics now, expect that is going to become more expensive in the future as election day turns into election month.”
Eberly said that once early voting has been introduced, there is no turning back.
“The minute someone says well we need to curtail or end early voting, someone is going to accuse them of simply trying to suppress the vote, and nobody wants to be accused of that,” Eberly said. “We’ll probably continue to allow a practice that’s expensive but doesn’t actually expand the franchise in any way.”
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