How Early Voting Gave California to Hillary

George Will writes a piece today on what he describes as the "plague" of early voting and how it might have given California to Hillary:

Once upon a time, in an America now consigned to the mists of memory, there was a quaint and, it is now said, oppressive custom called Election Day. This great national coming together of the public in public polling places, this rare communitarian moment in a nation of restless individualists, was an exhilarating episode in our civic liturgy. Then came, in the name of progress, the plague of early voting.

In many states, voting extends over weeks, beginning before campaigns reach their informative crescendos. This plague has been encouraged by people, often Democrats, who insist, without much supporting evidence, that it increases voter turnout, especially among minorities and workers for whom the challenge of getting to polling places on a particular day is supposedly too burdensome.

The plague made many Super Tuesday voters -- those who hurried to cast their ballots for John Edwards, Rudy Giuliani and other dear departeds -- feel like ninnies, which serves them right. On Tuesday, the Democratic Party paid a price for early voting, especially in California, where more than 2 million votes were cast in the 29 days prior to what is anachronistically called Election Day. The price was paid by the party's most potentially potent nominee, Obama, whose surge became apparent after many impatient voters had already rushed to judgment.

Although Obama lost California to Clinton by 380,000 votes, he surely ran much closer in the votes cast on Tuesday, after her double-digit lead in polls had evaporated. Had he won the third of the three C's -- he won Connecticut, where a large portion of voters are in her New York City media market, and in Colorado, a red Western state rapidly turning purple -- he might now be unstoppable.

A huge number of Californians vote via absenteee ballots, even if they plan to be home on election day. It's just more convenient for those who don't want to go wait at a polling place.

Of course, this means that those votes are often cast before the campaigns really get wound up during the final frantic days. During those last days Hillary's numbers seemed to be in freefall with Obama rising dramatically. The same thing was occurring on the GOP side with a last minute poll showing Romney with a big lead. Neither Romney nor Obama prevailed on election day and much of that could be credited to the early voting.

While convenience is great and we want to get as many responsible citizens as possible to the polls, there is something to be said for having all voting on one day when everyone is working off the same set of facts.