Oregon Media Insiders

Lynn, the point I was making is that voting before election day is ill-advised. Whether you mail your ballot or drop it off is irrelevant. (I wish elections officials would not encourage this practice by setting up ballot drop-off sites so early. They should wait until the day before election day at the earliest.)

I wonder how many Republicans are now wishing they could change their vote in the Mannix-Erickson race, and how many more will wish they could if it becomes clear who's lying.

Another problem with early voting is that it short-circuits campaigns that depend on voter education (these tend to be liberal/progressive in nature). In the past decade I've seen several good candidates/measures go down to a close defeat (and several bad ones eke out a close victory) despite polls showing a clear trend in the other direction in the last days of the campaign. Surely early voting played a role in at least some of these outcomes.

Oregon's mail-based voting system does have some advantages. I do like getting my ballot early so I can take some time to look it over and decide on each race. But one of the unfortunate consequences of the system has been to foster a culture of early voting that probably can't be undone without major changes to the system, which are unlikely to occur. Too bad.