There's a conversation to be had on early-voting demographics, e.g. bundling states so that—together—they give a US-representative voter sample. We also must discuss other demographics:
🔹Purple States
🔹Independent Voters
🔹Age
🔹Education Level
🔹Rural/Urban
...and much more.
🔹Purple States
🔹Independent Voters
🔹Age
🔹Education Level
🔹Rural/Urban
...and much more.
PS/ My concern is that we not choose just one type of voter diversity or demographics and make it the only consideration—it must be a matrix. What about, e.g., the cost of ad buys in a state? You could find a perfect state you need billions to run in—and it *wouldn't* be perfect.
PS2/ IOW, the reason this hasn't been solved yet—the early-voting problem—is not some insipid answer, like that Democrats don't care about _______ (fill in the blank however you like). This is a *difficult* problem—because there are 100+ factors to consider. But change is needed.
PS3/ My own thought: tightly bundle states that together are representative of all the ways you'd want the "First Four" states to be representative. Then you run those primaries on successive days, and let the state law-bound states—IA and NH—go only 24 to 48 hours before others.
PS4/ To be clear, the lack of racial/ethnic diversity in the states voting early is a *big* issue to me, especially with the lapse of time—not just a day or two—between Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada, & South Carolina. I'm only pushing back against the idea that the answer is clear.
PS5/ So for instance, New Hampshire is a well-educated, high independent-voter, jointly rural-urban purple state with a low ad-buy and low population—forcing retail politics and high voter self-education/engagement. All those things are *critical*. It's *also* not at all diverse.
PS6/ So anyone who says racial diversity matters is 110% correct.
Anyone who says it's the only consideration is 110% wrong.
Anyone who says we need to bundle states to try to capture all qualities is likely 110% right.
Anyone who thinks "all" qualities means ~5 is 110% wrong.
Anyone who says it's the only consideration is 110% wrong.
Anyone who says we need to bundle states to try to capture all qualities is likely 110% right.
Anyone who thinks "all" qualities means ~5 is 110% wrong.
PS7/ Note that I've been saying what I'm saying here for many, many years (I first began writing about elections in 2004). This has nothing to do with the 2020 elections. I think our conversations about early voting states have been facile for about 15 years. And they still are.
