WASHINGTON—The whole world loves making fun of American politics.

We mock the money, the machinations, the pratfalls, the poison. We howl at the sheer batpoo craziness. We can’t wait for the next helping of Birther Madness from that stunning number of Americans who believe Barack Obama is a native Kenyan. It’s just Trumpdilicious, no?

Yet there’s at least one data point that might wipe at least a little of the smirk away. Very quietly, Americans are dramatically changing the way they vote — and driving up overall voter turnout in ways that might bring blushes to other democracies struggling to keep voters involved.

As early-voting options multiply across the U.S., Americans are threatening to make voting day itself a relic of antiquity. By the time Nov. 6 rolls around, projections are that 35 per cent of the country will have long since cast ballots, either by mail or in-person.

That’s twice as many as those who voted early a decade ago. And more than twice the number in Canada, where only 16.2 per cent of voters cast pre-election ballots in the 2011 federal election.

Does it even matter? Well, consider that Canadian election, which clinched majority rule for Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s Conservatives, saw the third lowest turnout in Canadian history, at 61.4 per cent (the worst came in 2008, when only 58.8 of eligible Canadians voted).

Canadians might view their southern neighbours as the mothers of dark political invention, having pioneered and perfected everything from the art of the robocall to negative advertising. But in the phenomenal growth of early voting, there may be an antidote of sorts. After all, it is hard for a robocaller to misdirect you to a phantom polling station when you already voted by mail.

Like most western democracies, the U.S. has faced similar trends in falling turnout. But 63 per cent of eligible Americans voted in 2008 — the highest number since 1960. While some of that surge reflected the barrier-breaking fascination with Obama’s rise to the White House, election turnout was already on the rise in 2004, when 20 per cent of Americans voted early. And those who study the numbers say widening early voting opportunities are driving the numbers upward.

Call it a hidden upside to the seemingly ludicrous U.S. system of 50 states with 50 sets of completely different voting rules. Yes, the process is crazy, insofar as a voter in one state pulls a lever while elsewhere another punches a ballot — and perhaps doesn’t quite punch it all the way through, leaving a chad (and the whole country) hanging on the outcome.

“There’s something to be said about tailoring democracy to fit the electorate,” said George Mason University political scientist Michael P. McDonald, who has testified before Congress on the impact of early voting.

“What we have are these little experiments in democracy that are happening at the state level — and the better innovations are being copied by other states. So with each passing election, early voting skyrockets and the previous records are shattered.”

Colorado is wildly ahead of the curve as an incubator for change and now boasts a mail-in ballot system so refined as many as 85 per cent of voters will cast theirs before Nov. 6. Other states, like Ohio, went live Tuesday with in-person polls a full five weeks before the election.

Fully 34 states now are experimenting with some enhanced form of early balloting, while the rest remain on the sidelines, holding (for now) to the traditional absentee votes common to Canada.

“It just goes to show how really complex and interesting the American system can be,” said Elections Canada spokesman John Enright, who walked the Toronto Star through Canada’s meagre early-voting data.

Nothing short of an act of Parliament will change the Canadian rules, which set aside three days of early voting for the Friday, Saturday and Monday preceding a national election. A private member’s bill a few years back to expand Canada’s early voting opportunities died an early death, Enright said.

The numerical breakdown — 2,100,855 Canadians used those three early days to cast ballots, while another 279,355 went through the cumbersome mail-in process. That adds up to 16.2 per cent of the total 14,723,980 ballots cast.

The American numbers are projected to be well over 40 million early voters, or 20 times that of Canada. A twofold different, per capita.

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Stateside, George Mason’s McDonald says the shift to early voting is following a broad pattern of western states embracing mail-in ballots with early in-person polling stations more common in the east. “We finding that one size doesn’t fit all,” he said.

But as the first results begin to emerge, McDonald urged caution against those who assume that a ballot cast today equals advantage for Obama, who leads in all available public opinion polling.

“It’s just too soon to say. This idea of ‘putting votes in the bank’ doesn’t necessarily hold true, because the people voting now are high-information voters who long ago made up their mind. Only when we get closer will the ‘persuadables’ start to determine the outcome,” he said.

One factor in the rise of American early voting could be the simple impulse to get it over with, once and for all. “I say it jokingly, but there is some truth to notion that people are so sick of the campaigns they just want to make it stop,” said McDonald. “Once they vote, the campaign scratches them off the digital list. They stopped getting the calls and door-knocks.”

In Iowa, state law goes to far as to allow a kind of on-demand polling, wherein groups of 100 or more voters can call for on-site advance balloting. That adaptation was seen as helpful in the Sunday church polls that eased evangelical support behind to George W. Bush in 2004.

But as of Tuesday, Iowa’s early voting numbers were favouring Obama, with 63 per cent of 44,000 votes cast coming from registered Democrats, versus 20 per cent from registered Republicans and 17 per cent from unaffiliated voters. Four years ago the final Iowa early-voter tally was 47 per cent Democrat, 29 per cent Republican and 24 per cent unaffiliated, with Obama taking the state.

“Those early numbers should concern Republicans but it’s not time to hit the panic button yet. We’ve still got a long ways to go and plenty of time for the numbers to change,” said McDonald.

Phone ballots still far away

If you’re wondering when you can use your smartphone to vote, don’t hold your breath.

“We’re still a long way off from that," said Elections Canada spokesman John Enright.

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