[SamAdams76]

This early voting sucks. I can see an absentee ballot for those who have legitimate reasons for not being in their precinct on Election Day (i.e. military duty, business travel) but everybody else should have to show up on the same day as everybody else.

[fhayek]

The point of having to show up in one place on one day (and preferably with valid ID, sigh), is to make fraud just a little more difficult. But when you start expanding the time window, and dropping the provision that you must show up in person, makes the potential for fraud all the more possible. I am willing to bet that dead voters take full advantage of absentee and early voting.

[justlurking]

This early voting sucks. I can see an absentee ballot for those who have legitimate reasons for not being in their precinct on Election Day (i.e. military duty, business travel) but everybody else should have to show up on the same day as everybody else.

I'm the opposite. I think that early voting is great. You don't have to fight a crowd on a single day. And, if we ever had an effective voter ID law, the voter would be verified.

I think that mail/absentee voting is the most susceptible to fraud. With early voting, the requirement for absentee voting can be mostly eliminated. Except for the infirm and the military, there are few people that really need to vote absentee. Most business travelers return home every weekend (I'm one of them), and can vote in person.

However, I admit there is one big problem with early voting: the ability to vote in more than one place. You could vote in NY and again in FL... not that I'm saying that ever happens. :-) But, that could be resolved with a national effort to search for duplicate voters.

I'm loathe to use the Social Security number for yet ANOTHER government program, but it would be a way to easily eliminate duplicates, without false positives. And, the SS Death index would be an effective way to eliminate a lot of reliable Democrats.