McCain's Absentee Ballot Mailer Fiasco Spreads - Could Disqualify Some Voters

Florida Voter Caging Warning: McCain mailer w/absentee ballot requests September 9. 2008. Sasha Rethati of "Sound off with Sasha" on WGCU radio warns "snow birds" about a big caging scam in Florida. McCain mailers are sending people unsolicited absentee ballot requests. These mailers can be used to remove voters from the rolls.

**Update, this is still under investigation by the Advancement Project. The Florida mailer that David Rosenfeld shared with me is not an absentee ballot application, but a mailer about the voter's registration status.  A Florida paper has more:

From Democrats, Florida elections officials criticize GOP mailing By Steve Bousquet, Tallahassee Bureau Chief Sep 16, 2008

..."We have you registered as a Republican." The letter asks recipients to note changes on an "RNC File Card" and return it to the party by Sept. 26. The card shows a nine-digit "voter ID" number, but the supervisor of elections in Jacksonville's Duval County said the numbers are wrong and do not match the state's voter database....

Its not clear if there are absentee ballot cards being mailed out in Florida by the McCain Campaign. 

The mailer asks Florida voters to "verify" your "party affiliation" and to encourage you to re-register as republican if you weren't already.

We are told that this mailer can't be used for caging purposes because "non profit" postage is used.  Non profit postage won't cover the costs of returning the mailer to the sender, which is the GOP. (It takes first class postage to get mailers returned).

Iowa.

Fraudulent Absentee Ballot Requests in Iowa? by mshakir1 Fri Sep 12, 2008 (blog, not confirmed independently)

Several days ago, I recieved an interesting piece of mail from John McCain 2008.  It was a vote-by-mail application, which I thought was curious because I have never registered as a Republican or donated money to his campaign...After opening the application placard, I noticed that the application was asking for the usual info (name, address, date of birth, etc.), but was unusual was what else it was asking for.

At the bottom of the application, there were 3 check boxes that could be filled out, any one of which could serve to prove one's identity.  One of the check boxes was for an OHIO driver's license number.  This was curious for me, because as you have probably guessed by now, I live in IOWA.  Then I looked at the back of the application card, and the mailing address was for the Director of the board of elections in Columbus, OHIO.

Michigan.

Rove tricks? McCain absentee ballots raise questions By Diane Sweet 9/13/08 I received my absentee ballot from John McCain just last week (see photo of the mailer) and although I called to verify that unsolicited ballots were legal, I’d never looked at an absentee ballot before in my life, so I had no idea of the problems being caused across the country by McCain’s absentee ballot forms....

John McCain’s Literature Bundled With Absentee Ballot Request Forms September 14th, 2008

...A friend showed me one that his step-daughter received in Minneapolis from an Arlington, Virginia address containing a Colorado absentee ballot request form. The addressee wasn’t ever registered to vote in Colorado and only lived there briefly to work a seasonal job. It didn’t apply to her whatsoever and she was not clear why she received it.

McCain Campaign Accused Of Mailing Incorrect Absentee Ballots To Democratic Voters Written By Rick Ellis, Sunday, September 14th, 2008
More than a million registered voters in at least a dozen states have received unsolicited absentee ballots from the McCain campaign. The problem? Many of them seem to have wrong info on them, which would in many cases lead to the ballots being thrown out or disallowed by local election officials.

...Similiar ballots have reportedly been sent to registered voters in a number of states. In Wisconsin, Minnesota, Florida, Pennsylvania, Missouri, and Iowa the ballots seem to target primarily registered Democrats or voters otherwise identified as possible Obama voters. In many cases, the ballots appear to have the address of the incorrect election office, and often an office in the wrong state.

Sending the absentee ballot to the wrong election office would almost certainly ensure it wouldn't be counted. And in most case, the voter attempting to cast the ballot would never learn of the problem in time to vote at their local precinct.

...In the battleground state of Missouri, the problem is even more complex. The McCain campaign has admitted it has sent out the ballots to voters of both parties.

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