CNN

ABOARD THE ELECTION EXPRESS

KAREN BLEIER/AFP/Getty Images.)

CHICAGO, Illinois (CNN)– Here’s an Election Day prediction:

Some year not far in the future– maybe not four years from now, or eight years from now, or twelve years from now, but soon enough– don’t be startled if the current political trend toward early voting is reversed, and states decide to make it more difficult, once again, to vote on any day other than Election Tuesday.

At least that is the clear signal we are getting from the people we have talked with as we have driven through the United States on our journey leading up to today– and the clear signal we are getting from people at Grant Park, where tonight’s rally for Barack Obama will be held.

Alice Richards

“I voted early just because I could, but I think it’s ridiculous," said Alice Richards, 65, of Wheaton, Illinois. “I was at a mall– the Stratford Square Mall– and there was a place where people could vote early while they were shopping, so I did.”

In retrospect, she’s not happy about it, because she didn’t think that she was required to show enough documentation– and, although she still is solidly behind the candidate for whom she voted for president, she has since changed her mind on one of the local issues for which she cast a ballot. On that issue, even though today is Election Day, it's not Election Day for her– her vote is gone, and she can’t get it back.

“Absentee voting if you‘re going to be out of town, yes,” she said. “Early voting, no. You shouldn’t be able to vote early just because you want to– it changes the campaign. It changes the meaning of Election Day.”

Many of the people with whom we have been speaking– even those who have exercised their opportunity to vote early– seem to be harboring the slightest suspicion that anything that seems too good to be true most likely is. With political leaders making it so easy to cast a ballot well before Election Day, the hunch is that the impetus is not necessarily altruistic.

Bill Zielinski

“Early voting is just too ripe for fraud,” said Bill Zielinski, 53, of Chicago. “If you make it too easy for people to cast their ballots, the chances are that those votes can be manipulated."

He believes that the political leaders who are aggressively promoting the expansion of early voting– and who say they are doing it to help their constituents– may really have a separate agenda. “Some states let a person register and then vote instantly," he said. “When you have that. . .I mean, you think about political groups rounding up busloads of people, and then taking them to register and then vote right away– you don’t have to think too hard to worry about the possible abuses.”

There’s also the opening-the-Christmas-presents-early theory of voting before Election Day: you can do it, but when the holiday arrives, it doesn’t feel like the holiday because most of the gifts have been unwrapped weeks before. More than a few people with whom we’ve spoken feel that the significance of Election Day is diluted when it becomes one of many days when a person can cast a ballot.

And others speculate about what will happen in the first future presidential year when tens of millions of votes are recorded well in advance of Election Day, and then there is a major news development that has the potential to change voters’ minds, but it’s too late. That, some people tell us, is what will be the turning point: the first presidential election in which the outcome will be altered because too many citizens voted too soon to allow the campaign to fully play out.

Nicole Woods

“It’s a little like gambling,” said Nicole Woods, 33, of Chicago. “You put your money on the table, and you may win, or you may end up losing it.” She said that she is a proponent of early voting, and is willing to accept the gamble that nothing major will happen between the time a person casts his or her vote, and Election Day. The convenience of early voting is worth it, she said.

And if a vote turns out to be cast for the wrong person? “That’s the chance you take,” she said. “It happens in life all the time, so it’s going to happen in voting."

As more and more people vote early, frustrations may grow inside presidential campaigns: yes, the early balloting provides an opportunity to lock in votes before minds can be changed, but in that case, what are the long and expensive campaigns really for? How will future candidates feel, campaigning down the stretch in November, if the majority of votes have already been cast in October?

Some voters predict that the political parties may eventually decide it’s in their best interest to limit the number of votes that are permitted to be cast before the campaigns are finished. Back in the days when afternoon newspapers were still a potent force in American life, presidential candidates made certain that they cast their ballots first thing Election Day morning, so they could be photographed, smiling and purportedly optimistic, as they emerged from the curtains. The reason was that the wire-service photos in all those afternoon papers were the last burst of electioneering available to the candidates– a reminder to citizens across the land to go out and cast a vote for the right person before the polls closed in the evening.

Afternoon papers may be a dwindling part of the American scene, but the candidates still vote in the morning and smile at the cameras, to take advantage of the many new ways of dispersing effective images. The images by definition become less effective when there are fewer voters on Election Day– when Election Day is merely one of multiple election days.

For now, though, the early-voting bandwagon is still filling up. Tens of millions of ballots had already been cast by yesterday. In this election year, with polling places expected to be jammed, and long lines predicted to be the rule, many people are grateful that the early votes are an option.

Cynthia Weiss

“I voted almost two weeks ago at the Edgewater library,” said Cynthia Weiss, 55, of Chicago. “To me, anything that can be done to make it very easy for people to vote is a good thing. That’s the heart of what democracy is. There’s no such thing as too many people voting– that can never be a bad thing."

But of course, one should probably never say never. “Yes, people welcome the convenience of not having to stand in line for three hours on Election Day," Bill Zielinski said. “And whenever people welcome the convenience of something, there are other people thinking up ways to take advantage of it. This is politics, don’t forget."