LOCAL

LANE: Primary Day now is more like Primary Month

Mark Lane
mark.lane@news-jrnl.com
Columnist Mark Lane likes to take advantage of early voting, and most of his fellow civically involved neighbors seem to agree. In the last general election, more Floridians voted early (including mail-in ballots) than on Election Day. [News-Journal File/David Tucker]

Primary season gets real this week. Seven counties, including Miami-Dade, started early voting Monday. In Volusia and Flagler counties, five early voting stations open Saturday morning at 8.

And vote-by-mail ballots already started going out July 24. At the end of last week, about 21,500 were returned to the Volusia County elections office and almost a half million statewide.

In the 2016 general election, more Floridians voted early than voted on Election Day. In Volusia County, 65 percent did – 28 percent by mail and 37 percent during early voting days. If trends continue, that percentage should be higher this year.

The rule of thumb is more Democrats vote at early voting sites; more Republicans vote by mail.

Myself, I tend to vote early in person. I've been a fan of early voting since 2004 when it started in Florida. Not on the first day because early voting stations tend to experience an initial rush. But a day or two in.

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Because I’m chronically overscheduled and a bad planner generally, I like the idea of voting when a window of free time opens up. For the same reason, I never clip one-day sale coupons, the 12-hour deadline of Election Day makes me nervous. I have enough deadlines in my usual week.

Mail-in voting is convenient, but there are multiple steps involved, and I’m never entirely certain I’ve carried them all through and signed in the right place. I’ve spent hours watching county canvassing boards going over questionable mailed-in ballots, so I’m impressed at the multitude of ways people can screw up a mail-in ballot. Starting with signatures that are odd squiggles that don’t remotely look like any voter signature on record.

I started to type the phrase “absentee ballot” here, which really would have dated me. They haven’t been called that for ages. You used to need to sign a statement saying you couldn’t get to your polling place, but the law changed in 2002 to allow you to mail in a ballot just because you feel like doing it that way.

But I like the social aspect of standing in a busy polling place. It reaffirms my belief that the people around me are more civically involved and interested in their community than people say. When you spend a lot of time in lightly attended meetings and candidate forums, it’s easy to wonder.

But here, every couple of years, you get to see enough people show up to form a line at the door. You encounter campaigners and candidates on the sidewalk. Signs of an engaged public out there in person. Who knew?

I also like all forms of early voting because they blunt the effect of the last-minute negative advertisement. The idea traditionally is to make charges at the last minute so there will be no time left to refute them. It’s harder than ever for campaigns to time this right.

With early voting, these ads, even if I were inclined to half-believe them, have no effect on me. Already voted, sucker! Your Floridians United for Better Government Through Generic Attack Ads and Creative Use of Stock Photos Committee just wasted postage and printing on me. The black-and-white photograph of your opponent that looks like it was lifted from the shoplifting camera at the Pump ‘N’ Pay is good only for laughs.

So when a campaign claims it is gaining momentum at the finish line through its brilliant last-minute ad blitz, this should be viewed skeptically. Most voters arrive at the finish line well ahead of the campaign. I know I will.