Does early voting undermine the democratic process?

Early voting has become increasingly popular in recent years for its flexibility, making voting easier for anyone who may need additional time to get to the polls. As of Thursday, more than 30 million Americans had already cast early ballots, and both campaigns are using early voting data to help hone their final pre-election push.

But convenience aside, is early voting really such a good idea? Residents of some states could vote as early as Sept. 23, which means they may have voted weeks before learning about major new information, like Donald Trump's sexual remarks and assault scandal (which began Oct. 7) or Hillary Clinton's extended email investigation (which began Oct. 28).

"This demonstrates the high costs early voting can have for voters," argues Eugene Kontorovich at The Hill, "and how it threatens the very nature of democracy and political competition" by fostering base partisanship and uninformed votes.

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Kontorovich contends that particularly in an "informationally back-loaded" campaign like this one, "Early voters have less information, and are thus more likely to be acting on pure partisan or identity-politics allegiance than on a consideration of the candidates and their positions." As a result, he adds, "early voting only reinforces the growing factionalism and polarization that pretty much everyone bemoans."