Columnist Erin Neff: Early Voting the democratic thing to do

Erin Neff

Friday, Aug. 23, 2002 | 4:17 a.m.

LAST SATURDAY, my trip for bread and milk took on patriotic significance as I cast a ballot before buying the groceries.

That, according to some, makes me a fool and a sloth, a willful idiot and a lazy ignoramus.

My grave sin was voting early -- something Nevadans are allowed to do for a two-week period leading up to elections in venues like malls and grocery stores.

If voting is easy, critics sniff, people will head to the polls like sheep -- heads filled with whatever spin political consultants are using to control them.

But by voting on Aug. 17, I not only found a convenient way to express my rights, but an escape from the last-minute advertising on television trying to tell me what to do.

Early Voting isn't eroding our democracy, it's helping advance it one man, one mall corndog, one vote at a time.

You want to see America? Go to the mall.

You want Las Vegans to vote? Head for the Meadows and the Boulevard.

This is a good thing, and as other states are proving with mail-in balloting and proposed Internet voting, the wave of the future.

The first time I was ever eligible to vote -- in the 1988 presidential election -- Willie Horton grabbed the nation's attention. I focused on the original early vote -- my absentee ballot -- spending a day of my freshman year at college thinking about each mark I made as if I were making a difference.

And, naive as I still may be, I do believe a person's vote matters.

Why should it be an inconvenience? This is, after all, the land of choices, and it's only responsible for government to ease the process.

Since our great nation doesn't force people to vote, why should it force them to vote on one day?

Why not engage people in the process? Democracy is supposed to be about accessibility. We should make it as easy as possible, not as restrictive as imaginable, to take part in government.

People should be allowed to register -- as I have -- in creative ways. In Pennsylvania I registered at a Frank Zappa concert. In California I registered at a Tamale Festival and in Nevada, I registered at the DMV.

That's what democracy is all about. It's about giving people access to the system. It's not about forced tickets and gun-toting election monitors.

Let the learned citizens rue the fact the hoi polloi can do something meaningful downstairs from the food court.

Some argue Early Voting prohibits informed voting, suggesting erroneously that people are "taught" in campaign advertising.

No one can honestly believe that voters get smarter in the last days of a campaign. The rhetoric and sound bites prevail more as campaigns wear on, replacing any discussion of issues with spin.

The winner in an Election Day scenario like this is the candidate with the most money and the best political machine that can hit the hot buttons at the last minute.

Only a handful of television ads aired prior to my vote on Aug. 17 -- and none from candidates for which I was actually eligible to vote. Most candidates still wait for the last days to pounce.

Want proof? Turn on your cable this evening.

The campaign mailer I got on Thursday didn't tell me anything I didn't already know and didn't impress me by showing the candidate with two politicians.

I get my information, God forbid, from online newspaper archives and the type of basic candidate information the press provides.

Voting on Aug. 17 doesn't influence anything other than the outcome that voters on Sept. 3 will also have a say in.

It just makes me and others less influenced by the gossip others peddle.

If you run for office in Nevada in 2002, you had better do your work before Early Voting starts.

A majority of Clark County voters did not vote on Election Day 2000. When you add the 44 percent who voted early for the general election with the absentee and mail ballots, 54 percent voted before Election Day.

That's why the Sun published its voters guide Aug. 15, not Aug. 22 as the other paper did.

If you vote without "knowledge" of the candidates and the issues, there's little anyone can do to influence you -- regardless of which day you vote.

I talked to a woman at Meadows mall last week who told me she voted only for female candidates. She said she was happy there was a woman running for sheriff, but then asked whether Merle Lok was a man or woman.

Do I think she understood the differences between the candidates? No. But will someone like that learn more about the male candidates in the next week? No.

Voting, thankfully, is still about what an individual wants. And in America, the popularity of NASCAR, McDonald's and products sold at the As Seen on TV store provides a glimpse of why we often don't elect the best person for the job.

As a general rule, we get the same easily packaged, well-marketed, boring things that Americans tend to enjoy.

In a democracy, you have to trust the people. Even if they like NASCAR.

If scandals "break" two days before an election, there's usually a reason for them to happen. Typically the scandal doesn't occur on Election Eve. It is "discovered" then.

Perhaps Early Voting helps keep issues and not scandals on the minds of voters. Perhaps in a few years it will actually mean that voters demand more answers on issues before they vote.

That can only help elect the best and brightest and diminish paid consulting designed to keep the focus on a person's smile and haircut.

And in America, change has to start one man, one mall, one vote.