If that had been the only day I could’ve gone to vote, that would’ve been it. I would’ve missed my window of opportunity, and never would’ve cast a vote in 2008. Luckily, the Tar Heel State, despite its weird nickname, had implemented early voting under a previous legislature (early voting has since been reduced under the Republican legislature elected in 2010). I went the next week and cast my vote in a reasonably long line.
There’s no sensible reason to hold Election Day just on a Tuesday (especially given it’s not a day off). And there’s no sensible reason elections can’t take place during a far longer period.
Good thing the Democratic Party chairman understands that. In fact, in a letter to the editor that ran in The Providence Journal, Chairman Edwin Pacheco lays out a pretty simple list of changes; some of them changes of the changes that were just made to voting procedure. Early voting is the first thing. Others include:
If this is, as many observers suspect, an opening salvo in Mr. Pacheco’s run for Secretary of State, it’s a pretty good one. If the other Democratic candidates have policy offerings of this caliber, we might actually have a really great campaign about election issues leading up to Primary Day. And though it’s not exactly a make-or-break issue, how we manage and control our elections can be really important. Case in point, you used to have tear your ballot out of the newspaper, and it’d be colored in favor of one candidate or another, meaning everyone could see who you were voting for as you walked down the street.
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