Stephen L. Carter, Columnist

Montana's Surprise Is Just One Strike Against Early Voting

A sense of community is lost when Americans don't physically go to the polls.

May 25, 2017 at 5:14 PM UTC

Stephen L. Carter is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist, a professor of law at Yale University and author of “Invisible: The Story of the Black Woman Lawyer Who Took Down America’s Most Powerful Mobster.”

The way things should be.
Photographer: Justin Sullivan/Getty Images

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Going into Thursday’s special election in Montana to fill the U.S. House seat vacated by Ryan Zinke, now the secretary of the interior, a lot of experts are saying that the misdemeanor assault charges filed Wednesday against the Republican candidate, Greg Gianforte, might not make much difference. If Gianforte somehow holds on to win, blame the absentee ballot.

Seriously.