WARNING: McCain campaign sends out bad absentee ballot applications to Obama donors

[clear eye]

Progressive talk show host Lee Rayburn has gotten dozens of contacts from voters in Wisconsin, mostly recently moved, who are complaining that they have received unsolicited absentee ballot applications sent to their new addresses (not forwarded) from the McCain campaign, and that those applications have as the return address the county clerk of their FORMER address. While he was talking about this on the air today, other voters from Florida and North Carolina, as well as more from Wisconsin called to report that they had received the same. A number said that the were not registered Democrats, but had donated to Obama, so it appears that the public donor lists were the McCain campaign's source of the names. This had to have been cross-checked with change-of-address info at the BOEs.

This dirty trick serves a dual purpose. First the votes won't be counted. Second, and equally distressing, the inaccurate returned applications will be used by Republican state legislators to claim fraud by Democrats, and to push through laws with harsh voter ID provisions with which it is hard for poorer registrants to comply. This will suppress the vote in future elections.

Everyone who receives absentee ballot applications from the McCain campaign, or any unsolicited absentee ballot applications, needs (a)to not use them, (b)to publicize the problem as widely as possible including their state Democratic Party and the media, and (c)to demand an investigation by their Secretary of State immediately.