Early voting is out of control. While providing flexibility for voters can improve access and reduce Election Day congestion, the length of the voting period raises important questions about election administration, ballot security, chain of custody, staffing, taxpayer costs, and public confidence.
The goal should be to balance voter access with a manageable, transparent, and secure election process. A national framework should establish common principles while allowing states to determine an appropriate early-voting period based on their laws, administrative capacity, and voting systems.
With some states opening official polling places as early as 46 days and a national average of 20 days, the problem has become untenable. We need early and absentee voting reform now.
How we got to this situation is a far longer story than expected. While the COVID-19 pandemic is rightfully credited with the dramatic expansion of early and absentee voting, the roots run much deeper into American history, beginning, as many political disasters have, with the best of intentions. During the Civil War, the United States introduced absentee voting to ensure soldiers stationed far from their polling pla...