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Sucking it up for an early vote

Grumble, grumble.

That’s me, griping about a task I have to perform this election season.

Duty calls and I’m going to be forced to vote early in this year’s Texas mid-term election.

A polling research company has hired me as an exit pollster on Election Day. I’ll be working at a Randall County precinct, giving confidential questionnaires to voters as they leave the polling place. It’s a 12-plus-hour gig that day and I’ll be unable to go to my regular polling place to cast my ballot.

Readers of this blog know how I feel about early voting. I detest it. No, I actually hate voting early. My fear is that voting early exposes voters to being surprised when their candidate gets caught doing something naughty, or illegal — or both — before Election Day. Yes, I know that an Election Day vote doesn’t prevent someone from misbehaving between that day and the day he or she takes office, but I want to hedge my bet as much as is humanly possible.

Texas secretaries of state have proclaimed the virtues of voting early. They want to make it easier for Texans to cast their ballots, even though the state now has a voter identification law that — some have said — will make it more difficult for some Texans to exercise their rights as citizens. But that’s another story.

The blunt truth about early voting, though, is that it doesn’t boost the total number of voters. Texas still ranks among the lowest-turnout states in the Union. All it does is enable more Texans to vote early rather than wait this year until Nov. 4.

So …

I’m going to suck it up and vote early. Just to be true to my belief in hedging my bet against something bad happening to the candidates of my choice, I’m going to wait until the very last day of early voting.

See? Pay attention, tea party Republican members of Congress: This proves you can compromise without sacrificing your principles.

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No early voting this time, thank you

The November 2013 Texas constitutional amendment election came at a bad time for my wife and me.

We had to vote early because we were going to be away from home on Election Day.

We’ll be at home here in Amarillo on March 4 when the primary election rolls around and I’m returning to form and am going to wait until Election Day to cast my ballot. I’m guessing my wife will do the same, although that’s her call to make.

I’ve long had this big-time hang-up about early voting.

I hate the idea of voting early for someone and then finding out — to my dismay — that my candidate has done something terribly wrong.

Thus, I like waiting until the last possible moment to cast my ballot.

Yes, I know casting my vote on Election Day doesn’t eliminate my candidate from committing a dastardly deed before he or she takes office. Given that it’s the primary election and that in Randall County at least — where there are zero Democrats on the local ballot — the Republican Party primary is tantamount to election. Thus, we have the wait the entire rest of the year before our candidates take office. That means a lot can happen between now and the end of the year.

Of course, that will be a factor only if I decide to vote in the Republican primary. I might vote in the Democratic primary, which has some contested statewide races that have piqued my interest. I haven’t yet made that decision, either.

Traditionalist that I am, I’ll still wait it out.

I’ll let others troop to the early-voting stations and get their votes out of the way.

I also will hope that their candidates don’t get caught doing something they — and those who vote for them — will live to regret.

Good luck, y’all.