House Editorial: The advent of the absentee ballot
While every vote is counted, pundits and politicians can cross their legs and hold it
Posted on November 2, 2006

If John Fund, Wall Street Journal columnist and author of “Stealing Elections: How Voter Fraud Threatens Our Democracy,” is to be taken seriously, someone needs to mount up and ride to Boston yelling, “The absentee ballots are coming! The absentee ballots are coming!”

In a particularly alarmist column on Tuesday, Fund reported that, for the first time in American history, “it’s expected that over one in four Americans will vote before Election Day” via absentee ballots.

Fund considers the breakdown of traditional voting as a sign of trouble to come, primarily because it will delay election results for days as each paper ballot is counted. His one-line opening paragraph simply states that “early voting may mean late election results.”

But, in accordance with the 20th Amendment, the election results are nothing but head knowledge until noon on Jan. 3 of every odd-numbered year. Election results cannot possibly be constitutionally “late” until after the New Year; only the media pundits and Washington politicians, desperate to make or break the “lame-duck” label, “need” instantaneous election results.

For us college students, the advent of the absentee ballot allows us to actually participate in the political process, a much more warranted “need” indeed. For many, if not most, college students who will find themselves hundreds of miles away from their polling place on Nov. 7, distance means disenfranchisement. Absentee ballots remove geographical deprivation for not just college students, but for the elderly, infirm and intimidated as well.

We at The Breeze agree with Fund that precautions and safeguards need to be installed and advanced to protect against the risks of voter fraud inherent in the decentralization of polling places. But the enfranchisement of the people provided by absentee ballots is more than worth the risk.