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"Do Over" Voting

By Paul Gronke

Rick Hasen alerted readers to a court ruling in New Jersey allowing absentee voters to re-vote if their candidate has dropped out of the race.

I haven't seen the decision, but have a few comments:

1. The wording of the story is odd. A voter can re-vote "if their candidate has dropped out..." I learned, in the last six months, that the privacy of the ballot can be violated in North Carolina--they track absentee ballots just in case accusations of fraud arise--but if NJ doesn't have such a system, how can we prove that "their candidate" has dropped out? I suspect that anyone can vote again, if they ask.

2. This is not unprecedented. While I cannot cite the state, I was at an NCSL conference recently where a state legislator told us that, in his state, citizens can vote a second time at the precinct on election day, even if they have cast an early vote.

3. Tova Wang expressed concerns about absentee voting in a recent commentary, in part for this reason, and Adam Nagourney quotes me expressing the same concerns for Florida voters. Is a "voter regret" system one way to handle a dynamic race like a presidential primary?

(I'd appreciate an email to paul.gronke at gmail.com if someone knows of the state or states that allow "regret" voting and how they handle it administratively.)

Full post as published by Election Updates on February 01, 2008 (boomark / email).