Jeff Zeleny of the NY Times had a nice piece on early voting yesterday, and how the rise of new balloting methods have altered political campaigns.

I notice that no academics were quoted in the piece, including of course, me!  I think this is actually an accomplishment–while I have been predicting these changes to campaign strategy for years, there has been little hard data, or even anecdotes, illustrating the change.

Zeleny’s story, rather than relying on speculative quotes from scholars like myself, relies on quotes from candidates, party officials, and the like.  This is good–early voting has gone mainstream.

And ironically, post 2010 and especially 2012 is finally the time when academics will be able to finally weigh in with solid empirical data about the impact of early campaigns on voter behavior.

Crossposted at earlyvoting.net