Why Spend Money on Early Voting When We Can Mail It in?

By The Center for Cost Effective Government

With mail-in voting now being a valid method to cast a ballot in New York, why does Long Island continue to expend over $400,000 on multiple in-person voting days?

Nassau and Suffolk Counties alone have almost fifty locations that will be open and staffed for eight days so people can come to vote early. Now bear in mind that this is all for the basically uncontested presidential primaries that will have a very low turnout. 

If there is now the option to just mail in your vote without having to be at a specific location at an inopportune time (the main reason early voting was allowed), then surely there is not the same need as in the past for early voting procedures. Once mail-in voting was approved in September last year, the need to fund this costly process has been mitigated. 

Let’s hope the government puts this money to better use. We endorse the continued use of some early voting days, but not the eight that now seem so superfluous.   

The Center for Cost Effective Government is a think tank dedicated to exposing wasteful government spending and educating the public on various measures that can control taxing and spending for the purpose of creating more hospitable conditions for taxpayers and the business community.