Why Voting in Person Matters (Repost)

This is a repost of an original post that was glitching. Original has been taken down.

It's election time and the generals are just around the corner! Do you know who you are voting for?

Whoever it is (don't tell me, I don't want to be disappointed), make sure your vote matters. As I think a lot of us here at Minds understand, there's a lot of shenanigans going on in elections nowadays. Especially if the 2020 election is anything to go by (BUT THAT'S ANOTHER BLOG!)

One of the ways to make sure you get the most out of your vote is to vote in person. What benefit could that possible construe? Well, I'll tell you.It goes back to the original reason for having an election DAY in the first place. Election day: a single solitary day in which all the votes are taken. This was set in order to determine the true sentiment of the people. If some votes were tallied early, it could convey the favorite candidates before the winners were actually declared. The problem with this is that people could then subsequently vote in response to that information.

Let's say you want a particular candidate to win. You want them to win, but you get the impression that they are popular enough to win without your vote. So you decide to skip voting this election.

But then it is revealed through early votes that the candidate you want to win is actually trailing behind. You now decide to vote for your candidate in response.

This sort of phenomenon would actually spike votes for certain candidates and change the outcome of elections. It allows a candidate to get votes that they realistically wouldn't have gotten, from voters that realistically wouldn't have voted. Does a trailing candidate deserve the votes and possibly the political position when a constituency didn't care enough to vote for him? These voters are not giving their true sentiment; they are changing their behavior based on the situation. Candidates should be elected only when they are truly desired. Early voting distorts this.Luckily, it is the ones who push for early voting who are at the disadvantage. The vote-by-mail ballots are counted early and news studios are quick to give the running tallies. Citizens seeing nothing but early votes will assume that their candidates are the favorites. This will dissuade them from voting, while energizing their opponents.

We saw this very phenomenon in the 2020 election. The news kept reinforcing the idea that the Democrats were at an advantage by all the early votes, and didn't expect all of the in-person votes that were for Republicans. Of course, it didn't turn out in the Republicans favor, but that was for AHEM other reasons.If elections are a contest, then that means they have a metagame. There's no reason to give early information to your opponent (no reason to show your hand, as it were.) Voting in person keeps your party's strength hidden until the very day of election. Don't give up that strategic advantage.