Friday, October 24, 2008

two things this mid-day

1) Why hasn't John McCain used the following line:

"I may have agreed with George Bush on 90% of the issues that were voted on the Senate floor. But that's a heckuva lot better than voting with Harry Reid 100% of the time"

I was in FL last week, and the most effective TV ad for McCain that I saw was about 25 seconds of highlighting exactly who and what is going to be in charge of Congress for the next 2 years, and then asking: who is going to stop them and their plans? Obama, or John McCain? This is a theme that he needs to hit hard on, ESPECIALLY in Western PA.

Not to mention, he needs to stop berating the last 8 years, and focus specifically on the last 2. Who was asleep at the switch when Fannie and Freddie hit the fan? DEMS! (of course, it would help if he would not use the word "deregulation" and start using the word "oversight" more often) Who had no appropriate response when gas prices hit the fan this summer? DEMS! THAT needs to be his focus--well, not just the inability of the DEMS to do anything good for this country, but also Obama's utter inability to go against the Congression DEM leadership. THAT is a message that may just hit home--and who knows, it might even have coattails?

2) I just saw a story on Fox News telling of how there are already hundreds of absentee ballots in Fairfax County, VA that will likely not be counted by the registrar. Since this is Virginia, this has the makings of a big story. . .but I've gotta tell you, there's nothing to see here.

The issue is with Federeal Write-in Absentee ballots, which is a method for absentee voters to vote if they haven't received state absentee ballots. Let me first state that the FWAB has, in my opinion, a dangerously low threshold of identity authentication in place. And since there are even some states that allow for FWAB registration AND voting on the same ballot, this is an arena through which voter fraud could occur. I am happy to find ANY registrar (or other "vote counter") that takes this business seriously, because otherwise it could be a real mess.

States vary on their requirements to get an FWAB counted, and therefore there are elements on the ballot that say "if required". The directions for Virginia CLEARLY state that the ballot must be witnessed, signed by the witness, and the witness must provide their address--but since other states (Florida, for example) do NOT require the witness' address, that block on the FWAB says "if required". Apparently there are a lot of these ballots in the Fairfax County registrar's office that do not have the witness' address. I'm sorry, I'd love for these votes to be counted too--but if the ballot doesn't meet the states' requirements, they go in the crapper. Period.

Now what if this registrar isn't treating all ballots with equal scrutiny? Well, THAT would be an issue. But lacking any evidence that such is the case, this is really a non-story.

The good news? If the absentee voters hear this story, they still have time to submit a complete FWAB. We just need to make sure the word gets out.

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