With more and more states instituting some form of early voting (this year Pennsylvania added the option of mailing in a ballot in advance of election day, meaning votes are cast days or weeks before election day), I keep wondering about this scenario: (1) a primary candidate isn't getting much traction with the voters and drops out just before super Tuesday, or some other big primary day, (2) most of the ballots are cast before the news hits that the candidate drops out, and (3) the dropped-out candidate unexpectedly crushes everyone else in the primary. Can the candidate un-drop out? I'm guessing that's the case. Will this prospect make people less likely to drop out in the first place?
Just to be clear, I'm not talking about this year's primary (which I think is basically over). this is not some desperate hope for a surprise Bloomberg (kidding!) victory. I just realize that weird unexpected shit is always a possibility in the primaries so its probably inevitable that something what I am describing eventually happens--unless we revamp out primary system considerably. Which we should, because the current system is awful, but not because of the surprise early voter victory scenario.
