As early voting has swept across the country, its opponents have regularly pointed to the potential of a game-changing moment happening after millions of people have cast their ballots. Now it has happened. The gravity of this situation is obscured by the incompetence and depravity of Donald Trump and his campaign. Voters who wish they had their vote for Clinton back in light of the recent unpleasantness will likely not tip the election. Trump will lose by his own devices.

But one can easily imagine a much closer general election in which the GOP had not nominated the least-liked candidate since Jesus ran against Barabbas. In such an election, a few thousand votes for or against Ted Cruz or Marco Rubio in Florida and Pennsylvania could well have tipped the scales. Whatever voter remorse may exist today might well have proved decisive among those who pulled the lever based in part on the clean bill of legal health the FBI gave Clinton in July.

This should serve as a wake-up call. Too much can happen in a month to allow the American people to make as important a decision as their vote until all the cards have been laid on the table. People of good faith on every side of American politics should accept that the excessive early voting so prevalent in our system is helping politicians, not voters.

Our elections, for better or worse, have always been vast narrative dramas. They have beginnings, middles, and often operatic endings. It is irresponsible to allow so many to vote during intermission.