47 states allow early voting for all — what about the other three?
The three holdouts have their reasons, and some are rooted in real concerns about election administration and ballot security. Poll workers, machines, and oversight all cost money, and running an extra voting window is not free. But I keep coming back to the line in the article: the right to vote is only as strong as the ability to exercise it. If your only chance to cast a ballot falls on a Tuesday when you are scheduled for a double shift, the legal right does not do you much good.
I would want to hear more about what the three states say in their own defense. Is it fraud prevention, or simply that their current system works and they see no need to change? Early voting has become standard practice in the other 47 states without producing the catastrophes some predicted, but that does not automatically mean it suits everywhere.
Where I land is practical. I lean toward the view that more ways to vote is generally good for participation, but I respect that states run elections differently. The real test is whether those three states make it genuinely easy to vote on election day itself. If they do, the convenience argument gets weaker. If they do not, the right argument gets stronger.