I was surprised to see official early voting turnout figures posted for some jurisdictions by party affiliation. The questions are; do these early releases influence the votes yet to be cast and if the answer is yes, should it be allowed?
Over many elections, we have seen that polling data is basically unreliable and the tighter the race the less reliable it is. The fundamental reason is that those responding to polls are almost always a self-selected group; you know the students with their hands up saying, “pick me, pick me.” After a series of prediction debacles based in exit polls, the public is rightfully skeptical of that process and a few of the national polls have learned their lesson and will wait much longer before making predictions. Others will refrain from predictions altogether until the voting locations are closed.
Official information is a different kettle of fish. These are not predictions, but more of a play-by-play. As such they are vulnerable to certain types of play-by-play manipulation. One of the more infamous is sandbagging, or holding back the voter surge or ballot submissions until late in the process to give a false impression of the true situation. Locales that are historically notorious for stuffing the ballot boxes, such as Chicago, have often been accused of this tactic – finding out the margin required for victory and making that margin happen as if by magic.
America’s voting methods have stretched out from days to weeks with mail ballots, absentee ballots, and early voting. The rival sides of any race or issue have a strong incentive to gather intelligence information about where they stand prior to the last vote being cast.
We should not wait until we have a serious problem before addressing the issue; we must assure that a secret ballot applies both individually and collectively until after the official count takes place and that includes ancillary information such as where the ballots were cast, when, and how. Individual votes should be protected forever.