Ed Brayton is a journalist, commentator and speaker. He is the co-founder and president of 
A few months ago we had a big fight in Michigan, including a federal court battle, over a primary law passed last year that required voters in the primary to declare which party they were going to vote for (there were two different ballots, one for Democrats and one for Republicans) and gave those lists to the two major parties but made it illegal to give them to anyone else. The law ended up being overturned in court.
But now we're finding out how the parties could use such lists and similar ones that are easily obtained, like voter contribution lists -- by sending invalid absentee ballots to those who support the other candidate so that their votes won't end up being counted. And it looks like the McCain campaign, in true Karl Rove fashion, is doing exactly that. There are reports coming in all over the country of Obama supporters getting these ballots in the mail, including some friends of mine.
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So, the McCain campaign is using the United States Postal Service to defraud and disenfranchise voters. How many federal laws are they breaking again? Voter fraud, mail fraud, entrapment, encouraging others to commit felonies...
Of course, Republicans ignoring the law is nothing new.
Posted by: phantomreader42 | September 16, 2008 10:25 AM
Indeed, if the ballots are fraudulent, then can those mailing the ballots be charged with mail fraud - or does there need to be money exchanged?
Posted by: c-serpent | September 16, 2008 10:34 AM
The Messenger was mentioned on CNN this morning, Ed, concerning the story on voter suppression. I'm glad to see this picked up even though they described it as a "liberal newspaper".
Posted by: Bourgeois_Rage | September 16, 2008 10:52 AM
I live in Indiana. My wife and I received an absentee ballot request form, mailed by the GOP. We were surprised to receive the form because we have never voted absentee.
Posted by: Jim Spencer | September 16, 2008 10:56 AM
How can you tell if the absentee ballot is invalid? I received one from the McCain group, even though I am registered Democrat in MD. At the time, I thought it was a smart thing to do and that Obama should be doing it to increase voter participation. Naive me -- I hadn't thought of this angle!
Posted by: Kelly | September 16, 2008 11:21 AM
Sometimes the deception is that you send your request for absentee ballot to the wrong election registrar, or similar official. If the office sends it back, you have less time to send the request to the correct office. If they never reply, the deadline for requesting an ab. ballot may pass.
Posted by: DaleP | September 16, 2008 12:55 PM
I see no problem defining the Michigan Messenger as liberal; I don't believe they hide that fact, believe they actually embrace it, and appear consistent in supporting this ideology. I've also found their straight reporting to be impeccable.
Having had a subscription to the Wall Street Journal for 23 years, I find it frustrating that they don't define them as "the GOP mouthpiece Wall Street Journal" given the extreme bias in their paper. Not for a particular ideology; but towards the objectives of those running the GOP party.
Posted by: Michael Heath | September 16, 2008 1:01 PM
These sleazy tactics are just despicable. Anyone caught manipulating ballots like this should be doing hard jail time, up through the next election or two at least, for pulling such stunts.
I'm sure the Democrats' hands aren't lily-white when it comes to vote manipulation, but the Republicans seem to be making it a core skill set, and their hands are already pitch-black from it.
~David D.G.
Posted by: David D.G. | September 16, 2008 1:08 PM
Where's Heddle trying to rationalize the sleeze away, so he can still vote for Palin? Its just not the same without the cognitive dissonance.
Posted by: Scott Reese | September 16, 2008 4:04 PM
Ex-fucking-actly!
Serious question: Will there ever be a point where McCain, or even just the Republican Party itself, does so much shit that the American people realize they have absolutely no interest in Democracy at all?
Posted by: tincture | September 16, 2008 5:58 PM
I got one of those!
Posted by: Skwee | September 16, 2008 6:15 PM
Sorry to sound stupid: could someone explain to me what's going on here? Like, what exactly is making the absentee ballots invalid? Thanks.
Posted by: Jerry | September 16, 2008 9:13 PM
Looks like this may be an overblown. The Brad Blog has looked into some alleged GOP vote caging and found it unsubstantiated. Note that one of the apparently faulty forms (missing a DOB field) has been sent out to Republicans in Wake County, NC. The comments at this linked post are worth reading for updates.
Posted by: Jim Lippard | September 17, 2008 12:02 AM
The absentee ballot scheme is not an example of voter caging. Voter caging is using returned direct mail to challenge voters at the polls based on residency (the foreclosure list scheme is a variation on that). What I don't understand is, if this is not what's going on, why are so many of these ballot requests going to Obama supporters? One of our reporters got one the other day and so have many others. They didn't request it.
Posted by: Ed Brayton | September 17, 2008 1:14 AM
Doesn't affect us here in Oregon, where it is 100% vote by mail. But I also heard on Air America (or read) that the mailing is not really a problem. In fact, I read that the Ohio Sec of State (or some election official), a Dem, has been the target of complaints from the Repubs for rejecting some of the forms because they were filled out incorrectly.
Maybe it's a smoke screen -- for what's going to come later. Do something that sets the Dems all a-twitter. Then show that they are just crying wolf. Closer to election day, they pull a real stunt and no one will pay any attention to the reports.
Posted by: Gerry L | September 17, 2008 1:27 AM