They’re not using the BOE list? That’s astounding.
Btw, in my little town, we’ve already had some apparent fraud. Some newly registered voters turned out to have addresses of local businesses, and DOBs that don’t match records in other gov’t databases. I don’t know which party – paper didn’t say. Doesn’t matter much here, though – this state don’t swing.
The BOE’s list is, of course, more up to date because it was built AFTER the mailing went out and came back. For instance, if someone moves, the old house is vacant, but then they file a change of address form sometime before the deadline. Republican mailing goes out at one set period: goes to the old house before the deadline (most BOEs in swing states are so backed up that they couldn’t enter new reg data till long after the reg deadline).
I don’t know for sure what the Republican list was drawn from, but I’d imagine it was a mix of reg data plus commercial (i.e. paid mail marketing) databases. Apparently a computer glitch screwed up some addresses as well. They also appear to, on some challenge forms I’ve seen, misspelt the name of the person who is registered to vote under their correct name.
Charming:
The level of “through the looking-glass” smearing in this race is incredible.
So, is that supposedly something distributed in black neighborhoods by wicked Republicans? Or is is supposedly a fake put on the Web by wicked Democrats attempting to frame Republicans?
Reminds me of this image posted on electoral-vote.com (and purported to be real on another SDMB thread) allegedly of a Cuyahoga County, OH absentee ballot, supposedly rigged to induce Republicans to vote the wrong box. Most likely, it’s an image of a ballot with the numbers 12 and 14 Photoshopped to look like 2 and 4. (Btw, electoral-vote.com has removed the link from its homepage, but has not removed the image from its server.)
Hmm, I thought that was real, and indeed I included it to show that screwy ballots can negatively affect Republicans too. Was it really exposed as a photoshop?
As a blogger pointed out (can’t remember which) we have ATM systems in this country that handle millions of transactions a day without a SINGLE ERROR. Is it really too much to ask that our elections process could at least do a little better than a couple percentage points worth of error in many races?
I haven’t seen anything definitive on it. One doper has opened it in Photoshop and claims there are indeed artifacts to indicate that the 1s have been whited out in front of the 2 and 4. I do believe it’s, as I said, “most likely” an altered image, because (1) it seems highly unlikely that a ballot would be printed with the options 6, 10, 2, and 4 in order top->bottom, (2) electoral-vote.com gave no attribution and has since killed the link, (3) no news site has picked up on the story and Republican have not protested, and (4) it’s a helluva lot easier to white out a couple of 1s on a digital image than to have ballots with such a blatant error printed and distributed, especially in such a closely watched state.
If you read the associated blog entry and feedback comments, you’ll see that several other folks from other Wisconsin counties have also reported seeing (and having) copies of the same document.
So either it’s an elaborate fake to smear the Republicans, or the genuine article. You decide.
Hail, Chief He-Who-Cites-From-Blogs. Sunk to citing the comments sections of blogs? Amazing.
Why don’t you call 1-866-OUR-VOTE (as cited) and ask them to fax you a copy? It’s not as if the people who say they have this stuff are hiding in the shadows or citing confidential sources.
(And once again, Brutus demonstrates an inability between a credible cite and a wild-ass claim…)
I agree with that, except for the artifact argument. Given that poor-quality jpgs have compression artifacts EVERYWHERE, especially over large color changes, it’s very hard to prove photoshopping without some pretty high-brow analysis of the actual image data (i.e. you often can’t tell just by looking, and have to do the math).
I guess ballot screwups only generally hurt Democrats then. (kidding)
Apparently, it sounds like the Republican mailing was sent by REGISTERED mail. In other words, if you happen to have a job and aren’t home to sign for your mail, the mailing goes to the post office and you have to go sign for it and pick it up. Which a lot of people aren’t going to do for some goofy brochure about how John Kerry used to make out with Stalin in high school.
Here’s more on Akron:
http://www.mydd.com/story/2004/10/28/192844/76#readmore
The Republican mailing was indeed sent registered mail. i.e., nobody is there to sign for it, so you have to go to the post office, stand in line, and sign for it there: something that many people apparently, after doing just that and being told that it was from the RNC, basically just told the post office to return to sender and make the RNC pay the return postage.
Those people got challenged on the basis that it was returned. And in some cases it sounds like the challengers may actually even face felony charges for filing challenge forms based on just being TOLD about the results of this laughably bogus proceedure. Of course, if the real strategy is to set up blame for why they created chaos in the polls on election day, then all it will cost them is a few local floozies who were dumb enough to listen to the national lawyers that got them to file the charges in the first place.
Oh, knock if off, Brutus. You were the one who defended the unattributed Cuyahoga image: “I am going with ‘dirty Dem trick’ until proven wrong”.
Does the complete lack of treatment of this alleged “ballot rigging” in any news venue, and an utter lack of response from the GOP, finally constitute enough proof for you?
Or are you a Democrat out to make us Republicans look like fools?
Brutus, I don’t share your politics. But you often make me laugh.
Thanks for the link rjung.
I wish I could decide. To be honest, given the current state of affairs, I just don’t know.
I’m convinced that the Cuyahoga image is fake – not only does it appear fake on the surface, but if it weren’t, let’s face it, we’d be hearing about it – and if I’m right about that that, it means we likely already have an example of Reps posting wooden ducks to make the Dems look evil.
Earlier this week I read an article by a man who claims to have participated in a particularly sleazy stunt allegedly perpetrated by Karl Rove early in his career. This fellow says he and others distributed, in working-class neighborhoods during the wee hours before an election, fliers containing offensive and utterly unbelievable smears against Rove’s own candidate!
I have no idea whether this guy is telling the truth, and I can’t find the durn article. Anyone else got a source on that tale?
Sounds like something Rove might do! 
In related news, the New York Times today briefly mentioned a possible attempt in Pennsylvania to misdirect Democrats into voting on Wednesday:
Back to the OP: I watched the BBC piece in question and was rather disappointed; it wasn’t so much that it was a smear piece but rather a bit of investigative journalism that hit a dead end. The reporter had the list and some hearsay evidence which suggested questionable practices on the part of the local GOP offices, but lacked the damning evidence to say that that is definitely what they were doing. Not quite a hit on the BBC’s credibility, but not one of their better pieces of investigating either.
Personally I’m a little more worried about the 58,000 missing absentee ballots, the reliability of the touchscreen machines, and the various voter intimidation and disqualification campaigns. There’s no chance in hell the reported numbers in Florida are going to bear any resemblance to reality, whatever the outcome.
Commentators are saying that the Broward county ballots could already have cost Kerry the election in Florida, simply because of the hardship most absentee voters face to vote at all, and given that they are unlikely to be able to turnaround their ballots in time.
