“What does ‘Election Day’ mean? Once, the answer was obvious: It signified the date — the first Tuesday after the first Monday in November — when Americans came together in public to choose their political leaders and reaffirm their common stake in democratic self-government. But tens of millions of Americans no longer wait until November to vote. In much of the country, voters are permitted to cast their ballots a month or more in advance, either in person at designated early-voting polling places or by mail as ‘absentees.’ Over the course of just a few election cycles, one of our oldest political institutions has been all but overturned.” [editor’s note: And he thinks this is the bad thing about voting? TO me, the sadder part is how most folks end up voting AGAINST (far more often than FOR) candidates, regardless of the calendar-date — choosing “between two” bad alternatives, rather than affirming their own beliefs, and confusing an election with a horse-race! - SAT] (10/12/08)