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Article: A vote for voting on Election Day
- Article from:
- The Boston Globe (Boston, MA)
- Article date:
- October 12, 2008
- Author:
CopyrightCopyright 2008 The Boston Globe. Provided by ProQuest LLC. (Hide copyright information)
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WHAT DOES "Election Day" mean? Once, the answer was obvious: It
signified the date - the first Tuesday after the first Monday in
November - when Americans came together in public to choose their
political leaders and reaffirm their common stake in democratic self-
government.
But tens of millions of Americans no longer wait until November
to vote. In much of the country, voters are permitted to cast their
ballots a month or more in advance, either in person at designated
early-voting polling places or by mail as "absentees." Over the
course of just a few election cycles, one of our oldest political
institutions has been all but overturned. In 1980, notes political
scientist John Fortier of ...