Two experts discuss the effect early mail-in voting has on running campaigns and getting more citizens to vote.

Joe Yuhas, executive director of public affairs at Riester, says anything that opens up the election process to more voters is positive. Kurt Davis, partner at First Strategic, agrees but says that early ballots tend to increase costs of campaigns and lengthens them.

Yuhas says an increasing number of people are getting early ballots, but they don’t immediately mail them back and sometimes even wait until election day to drop off their ballot. Both men say that late drop-offs can cause a delay, but it’s better to enable more people to vote regardless.

Davis says that due to early voting incumbents often have the initial advantage because they start with larger budgets. Yuhas says candidates need to run more sophisticated campaigns to reach early voters and election day voters.