Single Day Voting

By James Jimenez

If you’re paying any sort of attention to the electoral drama unfolding in the US, then you’ll be aware that one of the points of contention between the Democrats and the Republicans is that there is a great number of different ways that people can cast their vote. Coming from the Philippines, where we vote for more than thirty different positions in a single day – the second Monday of May, every three years – the variety of voting modalities can be mind boggling: they vote by mail, they vote early; there’s drive-thru curbside voting; they have ballot drop boxes – all of that on top of in-person, election day voting.

The simple reason for that is that Americans believe that the having the right to vote necessarily means that voting should be made as easy as possible, for the greatest number of people possible. And while this is a universally held principle in theory, the two major political parties have significant disagreement when it comes to implementation. Republicans favor single day voting – which means no early voting among other things – and having Voter ID requirements, to prove a voter’s citizenship. Democrats on the other hand, like voting practices the way they are: multiple day, and no strict voter ID requirements.

The Philippine system of elections is sort of a combination of both. We have single day voting – like the Republicans want – and we don’t require voter IDs. Now, there are those among us who would like to see the country’s electoral system ditch the single day voting set up. So it would be good for us to draw up some pros and cons for the practice.

PROS

The most obvious benefit of single day voting is that it gives us a clear and defined voting period. With there being a definitive election day, we get a straightforward, consistent time for voters, candidates, and election officials. For voters, this means they can easily plan ahead, in order to ensure that voting doesn’t run into conflict with any of their other activities, thus driving up the voter turnout numbers. If voting is set for a specific day, people are more likely to participate,

For candidates, having single day voting means ‘trending,’ is effectively avoided. ‘Trending’ in the context of election management (not in the context of social media) refers to the phenomenon where votes cast earlier unduly influence the votes cast later – those who cast their ballots later tend to follow the ‘trend’ that the voting follows, reducing the elections to a bandwagon effect, rather than an accurate determination of the electorate’s will.

And for election officials, single day voting may be a gargantuan task, but it does simplify logistics. Election staff and volunteers only need to be organized and deployed on a single day, potentially lowering costs and reducing logistical challenges compared to a multi-day election.

Single day voting also reduces the time frame in which potential election tampering can occur, boosting election integrity and security. With voting transpiring on a single day, it is easier for officials to marshal their resources more efficiently, allowing them to monitor the process closely and ensure that security protocols are followed.

Results are available sooner as well. Especially with automation, the outcome of single-day elections is literally knowable within 24 hours. This reduces speculation and anxiety, as well as driving down the cost of election administration as counting operations can quickly be wrapped up within a couple of days. More importantly, having all the counting and canvassing done on one day – essentially as one continuous operation – drastically reduces the possibility of error creeping into the vote totals, as would happen if ballots had to be counted at different times, depending on when they come in. We literally see this problem in the US where counting literally takes days to complete with the counting of mail in ballots proceeding separately from the counting of early ballots, which are counted separately from the counting of election day ballots.

CONS

Having said all of that, we must also recognize that single day voting comes with considerable cons too.

Not everyone can make it to the polls on a single day due to work, family obligations, health issues, or the lack of transportation. This disproportionately affects low income workers, hourly workers, and people with disabilities. The accessibility challenge posed by single day voters is well known in Philippine elections. PWDS often skip voting because of these difficulties, and many workers – especially those in the retail service industry – typically are unable to leave their jobs just to go vote.

Long wait times at the polling place and voter fatigue are very real as well. A single-day election typically results in longer lines, especially during peak hours, potentially deterring people from voting. Couple this with the high probability of counting machines malfunctioning or supplies running out – they overheat, get congested, get temperamental, or just outright give up the ghost – and you have a recipe for election day delays that can try the patience of the most dedicated Democracy Observer.

Of particular note in the Philippines is single day voting’s vulnerability to weather and force majeur. A single day of voting is more vulnerable to weather disruptions, natural disasters, or other unforeseen events that can make it difficult or impossible for some to vote. It is easy to see how a multi-day or more flexible voting period can reduce the impact of these disruptions.

Weather, counting machine issues, long lines – all of this can, and often does, depress voter turnout and predispose to disenfranchisement. Although historically, the Philippines boasts of voter turnouts in the high 70’s – often reaching up to 78-80%, it is widely acknowledged that these numbers could actually be higher.

And of course, the biggest criticism of the single day voting scheme is that it generates too much of a fiesta atmosphere where the seriousness of the elections is subordinated to spectacle, and contributes to the people’s shallow appreciation of democracy. From this point, we can make a series of arguments that inevitably link our cavalier attitude towards elections with the apparent national fascination with strongmen and authoritarians, but that’s for another article on another day.

RE-THINK

While single-day voting is more traditional, multi-day or alternative voting options such as early voting, mail-in voting do show promise. Unfortunately, while we do have these alternative modes in play, they are of drastically limited application. Voting by mail is only available to overseas voters, for example, and early voting can only be availed of by government employees and members of the media – in both cases, needing special legislation to make it happen.

With our voting population growing by the day, it is perhaps time to re-think how these alternative modes are used, and for whom.