Editorial - Take advantage of early voting

It’s finally here.

After months of being subjected to sensationalist horse-race coverage, annoying political attack advertisements and ill-informed rants in your Facebook and Twitter feeds, you can finally vote and move on with your lives. However, Election Day is not for another week and a half, so truly moving beyond the madness that is the modern election season will have to wait until then. West Virginians now have the opportunity to vote thanks to the state’s early voting program. The program will continue until Nov. 3 at 5 p.m. If you do not vote by then, you will have to wait until Tuesday, Nov. 6 to cast your ballot.

Early voting provides students with busy schedules and tendencies to procrastinate with multiple opportunities to cast their ballot.

This leaves students with no excuse not to take the time to vote. Between all the early voting dates and the fact the University is closed on Election Day, everyone with the slightest desire to participate in the election will have the opportunity.

If you plan on voting early in Morgantown, stop by the voting stations in the Mountaineer Mall on Greenbag Road between 9 a.m. and 5 p.m. Monday through Thursday through Nov. 3.

West Virginia is one of several states participating in some form of early voting.

These programs are a step forward for our electoral process and should be adopted in all 50 states as they provide people who may be too busy to vote on Nov. 6 or who are hesitant to deal with the long lines associated with a single election day with the opportunity to participate in the political process. It’s a shame there have been efforts to block early voting in some states, including Ohio.

Our democratic values dictate we should seek to provide our citizens the chance to cast their vote in the election.

Early voting is a step toward fulfilling those values.