Early Voting: Lessons Learned (Video)
Montgomery Week in Review guest host Henry Hailstock spoke with Graciela Rivera-Oven, of the Board of Elections, about the lessons learned from Montgomery County’s experience with early voting in the last election. One improvement discussed was to include more early voting sites, including one in Gaithersburg which did not have an early voting site. Take a look.
I’d support an early voting center in Gaithersburg. My daughter ( a college student) tried to early vote at the Rockville location, but the wait was longer than the time she had available. She did eventually vote by absentee ballot. I know a lot of people assume that the Board of Elections Office is an early voting site, but it isn’t (although you can do an on the spot absentee ballot). Students at my daughters college were receivng absentee ballots for days after the election so I”m sure some of them missed the chance to vote. Amusingly, many of them hadn’t used their mailboxes for so long they needed new keys to retrieve their ballots. They may have requested the ballots late, and they certainly weren’t all Montgomery County or even Maryland residents, so early voting wouldn’t help all of them, I have not been a big fan of early voting in the past because the cost per vote was so high, but if demand continues to increase I support expanding it, especially because the early vote tally is available on election night, while absentee ballots are not counted until after election day, which can result in delays for close races..