Marylanders will decide Tuesday whether the state can create an early voting law, but Democratic and Republican leaders disagree about the impact such a change would have on the integrity of elections.
The proposal in Question 1 would amend the state constitution and allow the General Assembly to craft a law adding Maryland to the list of 32 states that permit voters to go to polling places before Election Day. The only neighboring state that has early voting is West Virginia.
State Democratic leaders say early voting could ease lines at polls and encourage more participation in elections.
"It really is an outmoded concept to say you must stand in line," said Del. Samuel I. Rosenberg of Baltimore. "There is no harm in making it easier to vote."
But Republican opponents worry that the initiative could invite voter fraud because it doesn't require voters to show identification at the polls and it could allow early voters to cast ballots anywhere in the state. They say the Democratic-controlled General Assembly could pack favorable parts of the state with early voting centers while neglecting heavily Republican areas.
"What those folks in Annapolis are doing is just trying to get the people to approve this thing and not know the details," said Republican Party Chairman James Pelura, criticizing the measure.
In Maryland, measures that encourage higher turnout are usually considered better for Democrats, because they outnumber Republicans 2-1.
Nationally, early voters have tended to be white, wealthier, better educated and Republican, said James Hicks, a researcher at the Center for Early Voting at Reed College in Portland, Ore.
But, so far this year that trend has been "turned on its head," he said: Black and Democratic voters have flocked to early polling places in Georgia, Florida and North Carolina.
In states with early voting, there have been only 3 percent or 4 percent increases in turnout in the last few elections, Hicks said. "Really what early voting did was making it more convenient for people who already wanted to vote."
More and more voters are taking advantage of the opportunity to vote early, he said. About 15 percent of voters went early in 2000. That increased to 20 percent in 2004 and this year he projects that 30 percent of all ballots will be cast before Nov. 4.
In Florida, for example, 26 percent of registered voters had gone to the polls by Oct. 26.
