The special election in New York’s 23rd congressional district produced a wild storyline—one that began well before Election Day. The candidacy of liberal Republican Dede Scozzafava spurred a challenger from the Right, Conservative Party candidate Doug Hoffman. After Scozzafava’s poll numbers slipped and put her a distant third in the three-way race, she dropped out and endorsed Democratic Party nominee Bill Owens for the seat. Some Republicans who had endorsed Scozzafava expressed great disappointment at this turnabout. House Minority Leader John Boehner said, “this lady [Scozzafava] clearly has an agenda that’s different that most Republicans”; Boehner then threw his support to Hoffman.
But what about absentee voters in NY-23? We will never know the exact number of voters who marked their ballot for Scozzafava and wanted to change their vote in light of later events. There is a lesson here not only for NY-23, but also for other states: the longer a state’s absentee and/or early voting period is, the more likely that the results will not reflect voters’ true views come Election Day. Lengthy periods of early voting allow more time for game-changing information to come to light, or for a candidate on the ballot to drop out of the race (as both John Edwards and Rudy Giuliani did just prior to Super Tuesday during last year’s presidential primary season).
New York State election law limits absentee voting to a greater degree than do many other states. New York requires that voters provide an excuse to vote absentee. As of October 2008, 28 states allowed no-excuse absentee voting, which tends to boost the percentage of people who choose to vote at times before Election Day. But the length of New York’s absentee voting period can create problems. According to the New York State Board of Elections, absentee ballots requests can be received by a voter’s county board of elections as early as 30 days prior to an election. American Enterprise Institute Research Fellow John Fortier discussed the potential problems of a long early voting period in his 2006 book Absentee and Early Voting: Trends, Promises, and Perils: “In addition to diminishing the civic character of a single election day, the ability to vote early may lead substantial numbers of voters to miss out on important information in the campaign.” A month-long space between the start of an absentee voting period and an election widens the opportunity for late campaign developments to change voters’ minds.
Because Scozzafava’s decision to drop out of the NY-23 special election occurred on the Saturday before Election Day, it was impossible for some absentee voters to take this turn of events into account before casting their votes. The NY-23 situation should give pause to any states that have or are seeking to implement long early voting periods. An absentee and/or early voting period of less than one week is probably not feasible, but a two-week period would be a happy compromise, increasing the likelihood that these voters’ choices match their true intentions when Election Day arrives.
Jennifer Marsico is a Jacobs Associate at the American Enterprise Institute.