From today’s Wall Street Journal Political Diary E-mail:
A Long Wait for Absentee California
Don’t expect to get results from California’s crucial primary anytime tonight. In fact, if the GOP or Democratic race is close, it may be well into tomorrow before results are known and shape conventional wisdom about who "won" Super Tuesday.
The reason for the delay is twofold: absentee voting and paper ballots. Something like 45% of Californians now vote absentee and many will wait to drop off their mail-in ballots at their polling places today. Each mail-in ballot must be opened by hand, the signature compared with the signature on file, and then tabulated manually. That takes time.
In addition, reliability concerns about electronic voting machines have led many counties, such as San Bernardino, to return to paper ballots. Overall, a third of the state’s 58 counties have gone back to paper. Those votes take more time to tally too.
Advocates of absentee voting claim it makes it easier for people to vote while taking pressure off voting machines and making Election Day easier to manage. But in reality, it means that many voters make their decisions before they have had a chance to hear all the arguments or catch the rhythm of the final campaign, e.g. Barack Obama’s late surge. Wouldn’t it be ironic if Hillary Clinton loses California among those who vote on Election Day but is saved by the absentee votes she "banked" in the weeks prior?
"This is a case where some of the flaws in early voting are exposed," says Paul Gronke, a political scientist at Oregon’s Reed College, who serves as a consultant to Electionline.org.
Indeed, it’s time we started asking questions about the willy-nilly spread of absentee balloting or soon what we used to know as Election Day will become Election Month.