Declining voter participation over the years - although the recent national campaigns have seemingly reversed the long-term trend - has spawned any number of efforts by governments and private groups to boost participation.

We've had Public Service Ads on TV and radio urging people to register and vote. States have streamlined the already-simple process of registration by permitting "motor voter" registration at government offices and by allowing NGOs to register voters on their own. MTV has tried to "Rock the Vote" for nearly 20 years now, with little observable effect.

The latest trend has been "early voting" - allowing people to cast ballots weeks before Election Day - and relaxing the restrictions once present upon "absentee voting," originally intended to accommodate those would be away from their home precincts on Election Day or who were unable to get to the polls for some other legitimate reason. Now many states permit anyone to vote early or to obtain an absentee ballot to vote at their convenience by mail.

There is a problem with this, though. There is a reason we even HAVE a date certain for an election: it gives a finite period of time to candidates to campaign for voter support, and for voters and the media to learn all they can about the candidates. "Early voting" and relaxed absentee ballot rules have the effect of drastically shortening the "normal" campaign, traditionally about nine weeks from Labor Day to Election Day, thereby limiting the amount of time for voters to gather information and for candidates to make their case.

That can be critical to an election. Suppose a candidate is exposed as a foreign agent, a terrorist sympathizer, or a pedophile one week before the election. With early voting, many people may have already voted for him, and they can't take that back.

It works the other way, too: in Nevada, the campaign of GOP Rep. Jim Gibbons, early favorite to win the Governor's race, was rocked by allegations from a Vegas cocktail waitress that he attempted to assault her in a parking garage after an event, a charge he vehemently denies. Gibbons claims he only walked the woman to the garage, and that he did grab her arm to catch her when she stumbled.

Only recently was it made public that the garage in question has video surveillance - but the police refused to release the relevant videos, which Gibbons claims will prove he is telling the truth. They claim it would impede their investigation, although they do not explain how that could be. He had to sue to have them released, and a judge has agreed and so ordered.

That's good news for Gibbons if the video verifies his side of it, BUT Nevada has had early voting already going. Early voters heard the nasty allegations, but they will not see the video, obviously, if they have already voted.

As I pointed out in Do not register! Do not vote!, there is no imaginable benefit to our country by simply encouraging more uninformed people to cast ballots. We have enough idiots voting - and running for office - already. What we need is people willing to devote the small amount of time to find out about issues and follow campaigns, at least during this nine-week campaign every two years.

Early voting might increase participation in raw numbers, but it lowers the quality of the vote, even for well-informed voters who cast ballots before major new information is made public. We need to get rid of such ill-considered schemes.