Is Early Voting constitutional?

[Sam Spade]

The governing section of the Constitution on these issues, other than House elections must be held every two years and Senate elections must be held every six years and a couple of other minor clauses, are these two clauses:
Article 1, Section 4 - Elections, Meetings
The Times, Places and Manner of holding Elections for Senators and Representatives, shall be prescribed in each State by the Legislature thereof; but the Congress may at any time by Law make or alter such Regulations, except as to the Place of Chusing Senators.

Article 2, Section 1
Each State shall appoint, in such Manner as the Legislature thereof may direct, a Number of Electors, equal to the whole Number of Senators and Representatives to which the State may be entitled in the Congress: but no Senator or Representative, or Person holding an Office of Trust or Profit under the United States, shall be appointed an Elector.
In other words, the first clause says the states basically have carte blanche in how they want to hold federal elections unless Congress supercedes.  And Congress hasn't said anything in terms of early voting. 

The second clause is equally clear.  Since each State has the power to appoint Presidential Electors in whatever manner it wants to, it can clearly decide that Presidential Electors are chosen by the popular vote of the state and that early voting is a valid vote towards the nomination of the Electors.

Note though that in a state like Maryland, an early voting law was ruled unconstitutional in 2006 because it violated Maryland's "State" Constitution.  I suspect other states have Constitutional limits as to when voting can be held that limit early voting, but I certainly don't know for sure.  These would certainly be legal under Article 1, Section 4.

The Founders clearly wanted to let states govern their own election laws and wrote the Constitution as such, while giving the Federal government the power to make uniform certain things.  Any restrictions against who could vote in federal elections were clearly constitutional (with the exceptions of the 15th, 19th, 24th and 26th Amendment) until the Supreme Court started interpreting a "fundamental right" to vote into the Constitution starting in the late 1950s or so.

And that is that.

[Sam Spade]

I mean, if it is constitutional, shouldn't their be a set period of time before the election in which voting can occur? As it stands now, couldn't a state just set the early voting at January 1st - Election day. As silly as that sounds, what would stop a state from doing that?

The main thing preventing that right now is the primary process, printing of ballots, naming of candidates that must occur before an election in each of the states.  You can't run an election before you have a ballot.

If that could be circumvented through state statute (and it would get complicated), I don't know whether there's a federal statute on point that deals with this issue, probably not.

Then, someone will probably bring a due process/equal protection claim.  The argument would have to be creative, since it's not coming up in my brain right now, but it could be made.