Rise in Voting by Mail Transforms Race in Colorado

[cal04]

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/17/us/politics/17colorado.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slogin

The presidential debate had barely ended Wednesday night when Kristin Marshall had her ballot on her lap, pen in hand, ready to vote. Three friends, all supporters of Senator Barack Obama, the Democratic nominee, had their ballots, too.

“Obama’s the second one down — don’t accidentally pick the first,” said Ms. Marshall, 27, a reference to the ballot placement of Senator John McCain, Mr. Obama’s Republican opponent, as her living room of Obama supporters erupted in laughter.

The traditional American vote — a solitary moment behind a black curtain in a booth, civics in secret — was never thus.

With Election Day less than three weeks away, the number of people voting by mail has exploded in Colorado, a closely divided state up for grabs in November. Nearly half of the state’s registered voters have requested ballots by mail, compelling the Obama and McCain campaigns to kick-start their get-out-the-vote efforts — and devise new and imaginative ones.

(snip)
Two recent statewide polls suggest a dead heat in Colorado. Both the latest CNN/Time poll and one conducted by Suffolk University in Boston give Mr. Obama a four-point advantage, an edge that falls within each poll’s margin of sampling error.

[DearAbby]

1. Colorado here....

I did the same thing...the ballot went out in today's mail. Recently received it, no doubt I was voting for Obama. But after seeing McCain's cavalier attitude about Women's health...Pissed me off so much, I went and filled out that ballot last night, just minutes following the debate.

[ellenfl]

2. not to be a downer, but i hope you sent it certified.

not that it really matters. it could still be tossed out as junk mail.

ellen fl

[Hestia]

3. Thrown out by whom? USPS has to deliver junk mail by law - someone pays for that

junk mail (which I detest, which is why I go online and get off the junk mail lists).

[ellenfl]

6. but the recipent does not have to retain 'junk' mail.

that was one of the republicon's methods of suppressing the dems . . . i think it was a church that set up to register voters but threw any dem registrations in the trash. do you think that republicans are above throwing away a few ballots? i think it happened in 2000 and 2004 . . . a lot.

two words . . . karl rove.

ellen fl

[high density]

4. The USPS lives on junk mail

Why do you assume they are throwing mail out?

[DearAbby]

5. Even when it has OFFICIAL ELECTION BALLOT ENCLOSED

on the envelope?

[ellenfl]

7. ESPECIALLY when it has 'official election ballot enclosed' on the

envelope. you really think that katherine harris and ken blackwell did not do something like this? we KNOW they purged the election rolls. we KNOW the machines are hackable. you really believe that paper ballots cannot be thrown away?

sorry, forget i mentioned it. my ballot could get thrown away too and i will be going to the polls and voting on optical scan ballots.

ellen fl