Absentee mailers are smart, not "funny"

The media will find any excuse to suggest the GOP is pulling pranks, won't they? Let's not lump the McCain campaign in with liberal operatives giving away cigarettes, hot dogs, and bus rides to "maximize" their voters, ok?

The state elections agency is investigating complaints about a massive campaign mailing Republican Sen. John McCain's presidential campaign has directed toward Wisconsin Democrats and other voters.

Each mailing includes at least one copy of the state application for an absentee ballot that has the address of a local clerk and a box for postage printed on the other side.

But in some cases, the incorrect clerk's address is printed on the application, leading some Democrats to wonder if the Arizona senator's campaign is deliberately trying to get them to apply for absentee ballots in places where they aren't eligible to vote.

"They're trying to knock me off the rolls," said Democrat Beverly Jambois, of Middleton. "I can't tell you how upsetting it is to me. This is how you win elections? By disenfranchising other voters?"

Notice, Beverly is a Democrat -hell bent on stopping McCain's momentum here. I'm sure she was one of the 10 complaints. Here's a thought, Lady. Throw away the bad form and forget about it.

A McCain campaign spokeswoman said in a statement the mailing mistakes are "certainly not intentional" but she wouldn't answer questions. The statement also said the mailing went to "potential supporters across the spectrum."

Mark Jefferson, executive director of the state GOP, said the mailing is not intended to keep people from the polls and that the wrong absentee ballot applications resulted from incorrect information in databases used for the mailing.

"You do the best with the lists you have, and no list is perfect," Jefferson said. "There is certainly no type of suppression effort going on."

Jefferson said the mailing was directed to hundreds of thousands of voters.

Has anyone ever tried to do list-work? It's long, time-consuming, tedious, and frustrating. It's unblievable the number of people that move in any given year.

I just wish our media wouldn't appear to be so biased. They mention "10 complaints." OH MY GOD! STop the presses - 10 out of Hundreds of Thousands. I bet half of them were from good-hearted voters that wanted to alert clerks of the mistake. The other half were probably looking for some bad press for the McCain campaign.

And finally, when talking to the clerks, a good way to sum it up would have been to mention what clerks across the state would do with bad AB requests. Not honor them!!

Reminder: John McCain can't force you to vote anywhere. Duh.