Deroy Murdock notes in Down with Early Voting! that about 15% of the votes in the Arizona Republican primary went to candidates who had dropped out prior to the election. He says:
Most of those voters probably feel like fools today, having squandered as much as four weeks ago the opportunity to affect the three-way race among Cruz, Kasich, and Trump. Rather than allow citizens thus to make fools of themselves, America simply should catapult early voting atop the ash heap of history.
Nah, keep it. Many of us appreciate the opportunity to avoid the crowds on election day. Besides, those early voters expressed their own preference for candidates they knew wouldn't have won anyway. Maybe they were sending a message.
So keep early voting, but make it more meaningful by adding the right to cast multiple, ranked, votes. Here's a page advocating Ranked Choice Voting. The examples there pertain to multi candidates in which no one gets a majority. In the case in Arizona, a vote for a candidate who dropped out could go to the voter's second choice if the system allowed it.
Seems like a better way. Don't throw it out, improve it.
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