I just read an article through Madison.com where apparently the Government Accountability Board (GAB) has been considering expanding early voting.  Sometimes it’s scary to hear about all these things that are going on but barely make the local radar.  The idea was to reduce lines for absentee voting by allowing multiple locations within each municipality to open up to 20 days early and have voting right into the voting machines to be counted immediately.  Thankfully the article is highlighting the fact that public is generally opposed to this - I hope they listen better than our "representative" in the US Congress. 

While I would support some ideas to increase voter turnout, like having it on a weekend instead of a weekend for example, I’m very concerned about this notion of having 20 days of voting before Election Day.  We’ve already seen fraud in the existing system where it’s ridiculously easy to just show up the day of the election, show a piece a mail, and vote.  To increase that window to 20 days is simply not responsible.  In addition, new information is constantly coming out right up until the day of the election and I don’t believe voting 3 weeks before hand is a good idea in general (with the caveat that I recognize legitimate absentee situations are real and should be respected).  If we’re going to allow voting 3 weeks before the election then why not allow it 6 weeks, or 12 weeks before?  Where do we draw the line?

Conversely, I agree with the opinion stated in the Capital Times (!).  The gist of that article was that the GAB should first get a handle on current problems before expanding and creating new problems.  I suspect that perhaps my definition of current problems may not be completely in synch with the Capital Times but at least we agree that the board should get its act together.