No case has been made for early voting

Another idea to be advanced amid all the election-reform talks in Missouri is the proposal for early voting.

Under the plan, 11 days would be set aside for voting in advance of an election, with early voting closing on Wednesday -- nearly a full week -- before Election Day.

Voters could cast their ballots at up to five locations within each county, in addition to the county clerk's office. Unlike with the current routine of absentee voting, there would be no requirement that the voter declare that his anticipated absence from the county on Election Day or his inability to go to the polls compelled his need for an absentee ballot. Some states, including Kansas and Oregon, already have a form of early voting.

"Voters would like to come by the window at McDonald's and vote that quick," said Cape Girardeau County's clerk and chief election official, Rodney Miller, in testimony before the Senate committee at its hearing here.

Miller favors early voting and some other reforms, although he stresses his view that the current system isn't broken. Miller also says that if the state didn't pick up the tab, it would cost his office $6,000 for each election to cover the costs of additional staffing required under the early voting proposal. An official representing the secretary of state's office told the committee it would cost the state an additional $800,000 a year.

The state, of course, doesn't have that kind of money lying around.

Supporters simply haven't carried the day in making a case for this reform.

Early voting is an idea whose time hasn't come. There are too many questions about the potential for fraud. Under early voting, marked ballots would be scattered all over a county for more than two weeks before Election Day. And no one has made a convincing argument why going to the polls is such a hardship -- except for the infirm or those who know they will be away on Election Day. Nor has anyone suggested that the presumed ease and convenience of early voting would entice more voters to cast ballots.

Let's hope the early voting idea goes no further until a serious need presents itself.