Will early voting hurt McCain?

By Ed Lasky

Does the rise of absentee balloting hurts John McCain. The Wall Street Journal today reports on the rise of early voting for President:

By the time Election Day arrives, more than half of the voters in some states will have cast early ballots, voting experts say. That will upend the way campaigns typically proceed, because many voters will be casting ballots before the debates.

American Enterprise Institute scholar John Fortier says only about 5% of voters cast absentee ballots in 1980, when many jurisdictions required a voter to have a notarized excuse to get one. In a bid to make voting easier and increase voter turnout, about half the states now offer so-called no-excuse absentee voting, and 23 offer in-person early voting in elections offices and, in some cases, in grocery stores and Wal-Mart stores.

Mr. Fortier calculates that in a dozen states, more than 30% of voters cast ballots before Election Day in 2004, and in five of those, at least half the voters cast early ballots. Oregon has voted completely by mail-in ballot since 1998.

The Journal quotes one expert who believes this will not benefit either candidate as early voters tend to be those most loyal to one candidate or the other.

I disagree. Barack Obama will benefit from this trend.

We have one candidate who has long-term ties to a group that has been repeatedly cited for engaging in voter fraud. That candidate would be Barack Obama; and that group would be the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN). Voter fraud is much easier to accomplish with absentee ballots-for instance, the ballots can be completed by people other than the registered voter and voters can be bribed from the comfort of their own homes.

Another factor makes absentee ballot favorable for Senator Obama. His campaign has been awash in money for many months and has benefited from a long primary and relentless positive media coverage for at least two years. His image has been omnipresent.

On the other hand, Governor Sarah Palin still remains a relatively unknown figure who has been caricatured by an agenda-driven press. The McCain campaign does not have the money or the time to help Americans become more familiar with her in such a short time before absentee ballots are cast.

Furthermore, the absentee ballots are being cast before the debates. Barack Obama tends to perform poorly at debates-away from his cherished teleprompter (a high-tech security blanket) and, towards the end of the primary it was widely believed that Hillary got the best of him during debates held between them..

This has been the election that has been called one of the most important in decades-it is disconcerting that one candidate will be disproportionately benefiting from the rise of this practice.

Either absentee ballots should be pushed back until after debates or/and greater scrutiny should be applied to the integrity of the process.