Dakota Scout co-owner advocates against early voting?

That was an odd tweet to pop up all of a sudden. And don’t know that I agree at all.

As a parent of a child in the Navy who may be underwater in a sub on election day, and a spouse who is working across the state who absolutely will be voting in the November election but will not be in town on election day, early voting is what allows them to participate.

Driving down turnout is not the answer.

19 thoughts on “Dakota Scout co-owner advocates against early voting?”

  1. I believe early voting is for those who will not be able to on November 5th. Otherwise do it on the 5th. I do not want to vote 2 months out only to have something major happen between now and then that would want to make change my vote and couldn’t.

  2. It’s the law. I voted today. Nothing is going to happen between now and Election Day to sway my vote on any of the contests. In addition, I am not able to vote at my polling place on Election Day because I am an Election Worker at another polling place.
    Mind your own damn business, Sneve.

    1. So if for some terrible reason a candidate passes on or worse is charged with hanious crimes, you would still vote for them?

  3. It ruins October Surprises for one thing

    It’s also a good thing to do at the same time you pay the second half of your property taxes. In fact, I think EVERYBODY should pay their property taxes and vote on the same trip to the courthouse.. I think paying your property taxes to the bank with your mortgage payment helps ypu forget how much you are paying.

  4. I’m in the military and have served overseas in an election year. I firmly believe that ballots should be cast exclusively on Election Day, with pen and paper, by citizens who produce an ID. Once balloting is complete, the votes should be counted by hand.

  5. Meh he has valid point about October surprises. If you’re voting today you’re leaving yourself a lot of room to be disappointed by news that may come out in the next 6 weeks. Of course, campaigns want you to vote early so they can “bank” votes. But as voters, we should want as much time as we can get to educate ourselves.

    That said, Pat is also correct that early/absentee voting is valuable for members of the military, those who are sick and shouldn’t be around other people, etc.

    Both things can be valid points. Of course, X/Twitter rarely is a space for nuanced conversations.

  6. Early voting is nice and convenient, especially for those in the military or who travel for work. But before early voting, there was absentee voting, so voting was still possible. Yes, we should be able to vote early, but the question is how early? If a candidate has significant resources, campaigns will use that early voting time to harvest votes Now, mix in mail-in ballots like many states had in 2020 and you can see where some of the possible corruption comes from. Hire a few thousand people and you can literally harvest votes by knocking on doors and helping people fill out ballots. In South Dakota, we have had our moments where campaigns harvest votes over the span of six weeks by feeding voters and bussing them to the polls. But that’s been twenty years already and most don’t remember a time when we had competitive elections in our state.

    1. “Hire a few thousand people and you can literally harvest votes by knocking on doors and helping people fill out ballots”

      Where would those ballots come from? At least in SD, you need to request your absentee ballot every year by mailing in a sheet of paper. They don’t just give out stacks of ballots for anyone to take and fill in.

  7. I always vote early. Campaigns that are frugal and update their voter contact logs, will notice that and stop spending resources on those that voted. But not all campaigns are frugal.

  8. A truly lousy suggestion from Mr. Sneve. South Dakota is full of elderly voters, isolated farmers and ranchers, and disabled folks who find that early voting is a convenient way to exercise the franchise. Why deny that civic duty to a significant percentage of South Dakota voters other than to suppress voter participation?

  9. Take a look at 2002 and 2004. Most of you either weren’t around or don’t remember how they beat Thune in 2002. Six weeks of bussing voters to chili feeds and then to the polls. Republicans have dominated since then and the Dems haven’t had good candidates or money so it’s just a distant memory now in South Dakota.

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