<rant>A while back I posted here criticizing the McCain campaign for trying to lock in the votes with a campaign pushing early and absentee voting. Just recently I got the same pitch from the Obama campaign, and honesty compels me to bitch just as loudly. I think the practice stinks, except in case of genuine necessity, as absentee voting was intended.

Part of what bugs me is that it short circuits the campaign season, and I figure if I have to endure all the bullshit of the final month in order to earn the privilege of voting, so should everybody else. Voting early if you don't have to is the coward's way out. Suck it in, wimps!

Seriously, what if something genuinely bad came out in the final weeks about the person you've voted for; or something unexpectedly good is revealed about the other one. In either case you'd have voted differently than you did. It strikes me as a disservice to onsesself, let alone the country, to give up even part of the window available for making a decision.

'Course, let's be honest, I made up my mind months ago, and I think most people already have. I don't need any more time, and if the McCain campaign drops some kind of bombshell about Obama the day before the election, I'd ignore it as an obvious smear tactic (especially considering the source). But say, for example, you're one of those people who's reconciled to voting for McCain only because Palin's on the ballot and she winked at you on TV...and Palin is fired at the last minute and Mitt Romney or Huck is the sub. Wouldn't you feel like you'd been suckered?

If we had a system in which the election was declared settled when a quorum of absentee ballots was received, that'd be one thing. But we have the system we have, and it's based on not making a final decision until election day. Vote on November 4, or don't vote at all.

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