Schansberg: Let’s Limit Early Voting
by Eric Schansberg, Ph.D.
One year ago, I wrote an essay called “I, Pothole” — about the surprising challenges in fixing potholes. It was written in the style of a classic article by Leonard Read called “I, Pencil”. Read describes the complexity of making something as simple as a mass-produced pencil. The reader contemplates the wonder of markets coordinating that activity, despite information being so scattered within the market and the motives of market participants being so mixed.
The upshot of my pothole discussion was that a local government fixing potholes is also unexpectedly complicated. But the punchline was that potholes are much easier to fix than many other things — for example, the federal government running every aspect of a national health care system. FAFSA is another example of government failing to do something simple. Last year, the federal government badly botched the application process. So, in addition to collecting financial data which allow colleges to “price discriminate” more effectively — charging higher tuition to those with greater income and wealth — the government was unable to handle the relatively straightforward process of collecting information.
In addition to fixing roads and collecting data, I recently came up with a third example: if government can’t count votes quickly, then it’s probably not equipped to do more complicated tasks. Really, it shouldn’t be so difficult. States can set up whatever registration process they want for legal citizens. To vote, voters need to present an ID. Early voting should be in a tight window of a week or two before an election. Mail-in ballots should be restricted to the elderly, the disabled, and to citizens out of the country — and postmarked by election day.
In particular: with the exception of some mail-in ballots, all votes should be counted within hours or maybe a day after the election. Going into the weekend after the 2024 election, 10 states had not surpassed 95 percent of their vote counted. New Jersey and Nevada had about 95 percent. Washington and Colorado had about 90 percent. Arizona, Oregon, Utah, and Maryland had 80-85 percent. Alaska had about 75 percent (but maybe they face some unique challenges). And California only had 63%. People like to make fun of Mississippi and Alabama, but they’re smart enough to count their ballots quickly. North Carolina has been dealing with the aftermath of Hurricane Helene, but they were able to figure out how to count the votes. While California dithers, we’ll wait for more than a week to see who will control the U.S. House in January.
My proposal for limited early voting might be controversial. But why should one be allowed to vote so early and miss relevant information. Voters are notorious for having little information. Economists say all of us are “rationally ignorant and apathetic” in this realm. They don’t know much and have little motivation to care. But all of this is rational, since they have so little to offer the political process: a vote and maybe some money to throw at a candidate. Still, a political process which encourages people to lean into their ignorance doesn’t seem like a great idea.
Who should take the lead on pursuing such reforms? Ideally, local and state governments. This is called “federalism” — governance by state and local governments, instead of the federal government. But one can certainly make an argument for the federal government to be involved, given the extent to which this is “interstate activity.” What one state does on voting can have a tremendous impact on other states. (Imagine if California was the decisive state for the election and was this slow in counting its votes.) As such, the federal government could easily provide basic guidelines and allow states to choose within those restrictions.
Of course, this is one of the reasons for the “electoral college” — to limit the impact of any one given state’s votes. Instead of purer forms of democracy, we have a republic with elected representatives. Even the presidential election is not purely democratic; our system prescribes democracy within each state to determine the electoral vote of that state. This approach can mitigate some of the problems with voting in a given state– for example, if they’re large, corrupt, or incompetent. But the electoral college does not prevent delays from making a big difference in our national governance. Government reform should look to tighten this up before it becomes a problem.
Eric Schansberg, Ph.D., an adjunct scholar of the Indiana Policy Review Foundation, is Professor of Economics at Indiana University Southeast and the author of “Poor Policy: How Government Harms the Poor.”
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