love this question! possible answers:
- people are busy, need more days than just one to vote
- our polling places/current structure may not be able to handle everyone voting on one day
- There’s no need for everyone to vote on one day. I wonder why was there previously? Is it a solidarity or unity kind of thing?

Whether because of insufficient funding or inadequate performance, county election supervisors will never get their act together enough to guarantee short lines on Election Day itself.

it smells to me like:
- govt needs to be flexible and accomodate my busy schedule
- also resembles the growing “asynchronous” communication style we use in social networking more and more.

It assumes that people’s time is important and they should not have to wait in long lines.

you are more likely to vote, less likely to miss the date, less likely to wait in line - I guess, therefore, less likely to engage that cross-section of society you mentioned

It gives people an option to declare themselves finished with following the ever-more-pervasive pre-election news. It also, as I’ve noticed with my own unmarked mail-in ballot sitting on the shelf here, makes voting feel like some homework assignment I’ve been putting off: I ought to go ahead and get started, but I know I’m probably going to leave it till the day it’s due.

If you see less of the cross-section of society, then we become ever so slightly more insulated from each other. (although I’ve heard of long lines for early voters as well), more individualistic, more me-focused perhaps? making community, unity and nationalism a little less possible?

On the plus side (at least in Oregon): voting parties—that is, groups of friends getting together to hang out, talk through the lesser-known issues, and fill out their ballots. On the minus side: new ways for people to be suspicious of electoral shenanigans—witness the New York Times article from earlier this week on rumors circulating in the Jacksonville, FL African-American community, that early votes cast in their neighborhood won’t be counted.

There’s also something in the experience of time and of anticipation that has shifted as people vote early and then watch, in limbo, as the official day approaches. There’s a sense in which my participation is complete because I voted early and so the election, for me, is closed. But I’m in a liminal space as the election I voted in is not closed, and, moreover, still a future event for others (and thus, for me).