Advent 1

Volume 1 (A to Anno): Absentee Voting, U.S.

As you might have noticed we have just had an American presidential election. But don't worry I'm not going to spoil the pre-Christmas mood with a trademark tirade against Trump although I can't make any promises about tomorrow.

The history of absentee voting (and here I am principally concerned with postal votes) is (honest guv) interesting. As with so much else in American history, the Civil War prompted its birth. Eleven Union states permitted soldiers on active duty an absentee ballot. After the war other states gradually followed suit and federal legislation eventually arose in World War II, provoked because only a fraction of the huge armed forces negotiated the labyrynthine regulations to cast a vote. By the latter part of the conflict a more efficient system was thought desirable for the by now nine-and-a-half-million service men and women scattered around the globe. The advent of postal voting was not without its controversies. Predictable Southern states feared a widening of the franchise beyond their racist registration laws. Republicans feared that the military vote would be tilted towards the left. Plus ca change.

Today's political right still fear the postal vote and the left's alleged greater proficiency at exploiting the system. This issue will come into focus again because we are surely going to encounter agitation for absentee voting via the internet. And on that subject we encounter something unusual - The Pig doesn't know where he stands on the issue. Universal suffrage is one of our greatest societal adornments (even when it gets the answer wrong) but a romantic part of me still wants to see people exercising some effort in making their vote. 

So there we have it, rather a dry opening to our calendar. That is the way the magic number takes us.