Expanded early and mail-in voting leads to ‘kinder’ elections

Mindy Brickman noted to this newspaper that there has been an unforeseen serendipity to the extended early voting period of two weeks and the extensions of postal balloting.

Brickman, an Orleans Parish Democratic Executive Committee (OPDEC) member, has observed in her bid for re-election that this year’s expansion of early voting and greater access to mail-in ballots has seemingly improved the level of electoral debate, and stopped many of the last minute attack direct mail pieces which, often falsely, drag so many campaigns into the mud.

“I think it really improves the way elections play out here in Louisiana, and I’ll tell you why,” Brickman said. “We’ve seen, in recent years, increasingly cruel and unfair and just flat out mean mailers that certain candidates send out about their opponents. And in my observation they’re usually sent out the eleventh hour. They hit mailboxes the day before election day, not giving those candidates an opportunity to defend themselves.

“But now with mail-in voting and early voting – having two weeks instead of one – more and more and more people will be voting before those hateful pieces are mailed. And maybe that will elevate the dialogue, and get us back to the issues, rather than the personal attacks – which are frequently untrue, anyway. And I think it will improve our elections.”

That is, if the legislature allows two weeks of early voting and expanded access to postal balloting in the oncoming years. Currently, the state is set to revert to one week of early voting and the previous rules on mail-in balloting after the fall elections.

This article originally published in the July 6, 2020 print edition of The Louisiana Weekly newspaper.