Saturday, July 31

Absentee Ballot related pogram activities

The following comes from buzzflash via digby



I used the part of Krugmans column in a post that decribed the florida republican party asking that republicans cast absentee ballots, if they were living in a precinct with paperless machines.
Above you see the flier that has been ditributed to the faithful. the text of the flyer follows:

The liberal Democrats have already begun their attacks and the new electronic voting machines do not have a paper ballot to verify your vote in case of a recount. Make sure your vote counts order your ansentee ballot today. Just sign the request form below and drop it in the mail. Don't be fooled by imitations. This is the official Republican Party absentee ballot request form.
I believe that everyone in a district or precinct with paperles voting machines avail themselves to absentee ballots, for precisely the reasons elucidated by our friends in fairness above in sentence two: Make sure your vote counts... I find sentences four: Don't be fooled by imitations. And five, chilling: This is the official Republican Party absentee ballot request form.
I understand that during primary season, many of us declare party affiliation in order to select the candidates that our parties will run in the general election. I have never been asked about party affiliation before casting a vote in the general election. Color me paranoid, but I can't help but wonder if these "official Republican Party ballot request forms" will be treated differently that "our regular old official State of Florida absentee ballot request form". According to a commentor on Digby's take says that this particular document was targeting Miami-Dade in general and the conservative Cuban vote in general.

At least 2 angles immediatly come to mind involving the potential for disenfanchisement:
1. The ballot request form with the smiling king will recieve preferential treatment.
2. This could be the tip of the spear among a broader get out the vote early (if not often) so that republican voters will not have to deal with whatever plans that might be on the books to suppress the vote

Digby follows thusly:
This is post modern politics at its best. Up is down, black is white. We will tell you what is real. This is an example of the Republicans using the Democrats' own repetitive rallying cries against them. ("Political hate speech" is another good example.) It's brilliant because many people are apparently so goddamned stupid that they don't even have a second of cognitive dissonence when they see something like this. You can't really blame the GOP. It works.
[....]
Damn, I'm starting to pray that somebody out there is keeping track of reality because this is getting mighty difficult to follow.
It is up to us to try to keep track of all of the various shitstorms rising across the plains, because clearly the fourth estate is dead, and if not dead, lies in its own filth in an alley, brutally beaten and raped, in a neighborhood that the police avoid.