While the calendar indicates Election Day is 33 days away, ballots are already being cast. Absentee ballots are now available and the increasing popularity of absentee voting is having a profound impact on our political system.

In the 2004 presidential election, 166,000 absentee ballots were cast in Maine. That was 22 percent of the total ballots and election officials expect even more absentee ballot this year.

I am part of this trend. I first voted by absentee ballot in 1994 when my work as Rick Bennett's campaign manager in his race for Congress in the 2nd District kept me away from home on Election Day.

Over the last decade, I have voted more often by absentee ballot than at the polls. I have a busy schedule and, instead of worrying about getting to the polls on Election Day, I find it more convenient to stop by the town office whenever it fits my schedule in the weeks leading up to Election Day. It is this convenience that has increased early voting. But this convenience comes at a price.

With thousands of Mainers now voting long before Election Day, campaigns must start earlier. When I first became involved in politics, I was taught that a campaign plan started on Election Day and worked backwards. In small-budget campaigns for the Maine Legislature, this meant that most campaign spending came in the two weeks before Election Day. While campaign signs and brochures were printed early, it was not unusual for legislative candidates not to run ads or send mailings until just before the election.

Now candidates and their parties must reach out to voters earlier.

Legislative candidates must spend money in September to ensure that contact is made with voters before an absentee ballot is cast. In legislative campaigns, where personal contact between candidates and voters plays an important role, candidates must knock on doors through the summer. A candidate who waits until after Labor Day to get started will see lots of voters who have cast ballots long before meeting the candidate. In top-of-the-ticket races, the tradition of starting TV ads after Labor Day is a thing of the past.

Those who think campaigns last too long, can, in part, blame absentee balloting.

Early voters do not have the benefit of information that comes out right before the election. An "October Surprise" coming late in the campaign can have no impact on votes already cast.

For people like me who are straight ticket voters that does not matter. But most Mainers are ticket splitters. When such voters vote early, they do so without the benefit of late campaigning or media coverage. This is particularly a problem in the lower profile, down-ballot races that receive little media coverage.

Most newspapers write only one story on each legislative race in their area right before the election. As a result, in these local races, early voters will cast ballots with only the benefit of information from candidates and other partisan sources.

Early voting also helps incumbents. With ballots being cast earlier, new candidates have less time to become known, which increases the already significant incumbency advantage.

Increased absentee balloting also has increased election costs for municipalities with extra staff now not only needed on Election Day but also to process absentee ballots in the weeks leading up to the election.

Lost with early voting is the symbolic value of people coming together on one day to pick our leaders. Voters trekking to the polls together on Election Day are visual symbols that we are collectively part of a democratic system that has lasted generations. Voters casting ballots alone over a period of weeks is not the same.

Expanded absentee balloting was supposed to increase voter participation. But there is little evidence that allowing anyone to cast an absentee ballot for any reason has increased voter turnout. The increased use of absentee ballots has come from people like me, who do so out of convenience, but who would make sure to get to the polls on Election Day if early voting was not possible.

Does this mean that I think absentee balloting should be restricted?

No.

But we should think twice before passing laws to encourage more early voting as some have advocated. As individuals, we also should consider whether the convenience of early voting really outweighs the value of participating in our electoral process in person on Election Day.

Maybe I'll even see you at the polls on Nov. 4.

Dan Billings is a Republican activist and commentator. He practices law in Waterville. He can be reached at dib9@aol.com.