It’s never a good idea to "vote early and often," but there’s nothing wrong with just voting early, right?

In fact, some in Illinois are starting to rethink early voting. For many, the problem is as simple as the unpredictability of campaigns. In the Illinois primary this year, those Democrats who cast ballots for John Edwards no longer had a candidate come Election Day. Some experts also say early voting is driving up campaign costs, making it more difficult for grassroots candidates to compete against big-money campaigns.

So, should progressive voters take another look at early voting?

On its face, it sounds like an indecent proposal. There is ample evidence that early voting increases participation. It was born out of a progressive call for reform after the Florida 2000 debacle. Some of that reform effort, such as the Help America Vote Act (HAVA), took place at a national level. Other reforms, like early voting, happened state-by-state. Many state-level policymakers celebrated early voting as a way of increasing enfranchisement. Today, 31 states have embraced the process.

But regardless of reformers' best intentions, there have been some complications along the way. The first challenge to the Illinois system came immediately after it was implemented in 2006, when Cook County board president candidate Forest Claypool filed a federal lawsuit over the location of early voting stations. Then in 2007, a man named Gary Robillard won re-election to the Lake Zurich school board. Robillard had died two days before the election took place. Some observers faulted early voting.

Paul Gronke, Chair of the Early Voting Information Center at Reed College and a proponent of this particular reform, admits that early voting poses problems to campaigns with limited funding.

"The primary complication," Gronke told me, "is that candidates have to work on mobilization for two or three weeks rather than building up to a two day mobilization effort."

In early voting elections, voter mobilization efforts become more complicated, costly, and time consuming. Adding to the problem is the expense of obtaining the voter history files of people who have voted early.

"In most states you have to get that information at the county level," Gronke said, "and in many states that can be costly."

Despite these bumps in the road, Gronke argues that progressives should still embrace early voting. He says it increases turnout by around "two to five percent" and that many of the problems with the system can be fixed with minor changes to election procedures. Early voting data, he says, should be made available online as a way to "level the playing field and make less well-funded campaigns able to compete."

Fixing the problem of candidates who drop out (or die) before Election Day is a little more tricky. Gronke points to "voter regret systems" as a possible solution. The basic idea is that a voter who casts an early ballot can show up at their polling place on election day and effectively re-vote. The system allows them to cancel out their first ballot with their new one. This option might have come in handy for local supporters of Edwards in 2008 or Robillard in 2007.

Voter regret systems are not common right now, and they would be complicated to implement in areas that still rely on paper ballots. But considering the growing popularity of early voting, we'll probably be hearing more about them in elections to come.

All told, early voting is a valuable part of our electoral process, and with a few tweaks here and there, it could get even better.

You can learn more at the Early Voting Information Center.