Obama yard sign gets Seattle voter's absentee ballot torn to shreds

[eridani]

Lesson: if you vote absentee, use the goddam official drop-off points. Or if you live in King County, bring your ballot to your polling place on election day and drop it off there.

http://www.horsesass.org/?p=8892#comment-870307

The differences between the two campaigns are being played out right here, right now, in Seattle.

I received a knock at my door a few hours ago from a Good Samaritan, who had found my completed, sealed, and signed absentee ballot ripped up and trampled upon on the street late this afternoon. Evidently, some zealot thought my Obama/Biden yard sign gave him/her righteous permission to rummage my mailbox, and remove and tear up my vote in an apparent fit of rage. I would have never known, save for the good person who returned it.

Who knows how widespread this is, but that fact that it happened the day after absentee ballots arrived in the mail makes me think it was no random, spontaneous event. If you have Dem signage, bumper stickers, etc. at your home (and even if you don’t), it’s probably a good idea to take your absentee ballot to one of the designated dropoff locations or to a post office. Report any similar malfeasance to your local County Elections Office.

[palintology]

1. There should be a federal law ... 20 years for destroying ballots !

[LiberalFighter]

7. There probably is a federal law about destroying mail in a mailbox.

[nichomachus]

8. There is

Removing mail from a mailbox is a federal crime

[nichomachus]

9. Call the postmaster -- this is a federal crime

[Fly by night]

12. ... and don't handle your torn-up ballot any more. Might be some Rethug fingerprints on it.

When we win, we need to set up a national Rethug fingerprint/DNA database for these un-American election thieves.

[fasttense]

2. I never use my mailbox to send any mail.

Some kids in my rural neighborhood have a habit of tearing up mailboxes. My box has been hit at least three times. So my dilapidate busted mailbox just seems very unsafe for forwarding mail. I take my mail straight to the post office.

They still deliver to the busted box but I pick up my mail very quickly.

Just a note of warning, I heard on Air America that HAVA has a new unpublicized requirement that a copy of a valid photo ID must be included with all absentee ballots. That without it, your vote may not be counted. To make things even more difficult for us voters, some states require that the copy of the photo ID is placed in a separate envelope and not attached or touching the ballot.

It is safer to just vote in person, early.

[eridani]

3. That depends on the state. No such requirements in WA or OR

I sometimes mail stuff from my mailbox, but never anything with a check in it.

[LiberalFighter]

10. Not required in IN for mail-in absentee either.

[1Hippiechick]

5. And, if you are available and have time, get busy w/your local Dem headquarters and OFFER TO DRIVE

people to the polls for early voting! It's so multifaceted! There are already lines for early voting, but don't overlook the ppl who need transportation to the polls--even the early voting polls! In my county we are already offering to take people to early voting sites to vote.

[demodonkey]

14. HAVA says no such thing about absentee ballots... CHECK WITH YOUR STATE -- be safe.

HAVA has a requirement for 1st time voters who registered by mail to show ID. BUT SOME STATES HAVE MADE THIS REQUIREMENT STRONGER so the only safe thing to do is CHECK WITH YOUR STATE.

Know the law and follow it to the letter. That is the safest way to make every vote count.

[tblue37]

15. About 20 years ago I started having trouble with late notices

from my utility companies. I called and said I wasn't receiving my bills, but they kept insisting they were sending them. I also wasn't getting birthday or holiday cards or letters that friends and family insisted they had sent to me. I was on the phone with the post office constantly, to no avail.

Finally, after my having to walk downtown (I had no car at the time--too poor) and pay my bills in person every month for about 3 months, a lady from down the street (whom I didn't know at all) showed up at my door with a box full of mail addressed to me. She had been cleaning out her 13-year-old daughter's closet and found all my mail ripped open and piled up in the back of her closet, along with mail from other people on our street.

Some friends had told her daughter that sometimes people sent money through the mail, so she and her best friend had been swiping mail from mailboxes all up and down the street, hoping to find money. Apparently they did find money sometimes, since they kept doing it.

The mother was totally embarrassed and apologetic, but it made me very careful about what I put outside in my mailbox--and it made me rush to pick up my delivered mail every day!

[pnwmom]

4. Eridani, thanks for the warning. I guess they're capable of anything.

And thanks for the t-shirt offer before. I did find a couple shirts for my son at Fred Meyer's in Bellevue, and that's another story. I arrived 20 minutes or so before closing, so I went straight to the info desk and asked where the Obama shirts were. The young man said they had no Obama shirts in the store. I said I knew they did, and he insisted they could only be purchased online. I walked away and another young male store employee was following just behind me. In a low voice, he apologized for the other man being "busy" and told me to look in the men's department. So I went there and found a woman shelving things. When I asked her, she jumped up and said YES, that she was SO HAPPY to lead me there herself, because she was SO GLAD that that's what I was looking for. Turned out she was an immigrant, now a citizen, who can't believe HOW STUPID some Americans are!

As I passed by the info counter, I waved the shirts at the first guy and said SEE, you DO have the shirts, they're in the men's department -- in case anyone else asks you for them! Then I went to another counter to buy them. There, yet another young male employee noticed the shirts and said he COULDN'T BELIEVE that the store carried partisan t-shirts. I said, well, you carry partisan BOOKS, don't you? Then he said, well we probably only have Obama shirts then, not McCain. I said, no, you have McCain, and I even saw some Palin shirts. But, he said, those were probably negative, like lipstick on a pig shirts. No, I told him, they were pro-Palin shirts. But he still looked unhappy.

How pathetic that these two young men, low level employees of a store like Fred Meyer, think that a man like McCain will do better for them than Obama will.

[dgibby]

11. I'd be having a little "come to Jeezus meeting"

with that store manager. He might want to have a class on economics with those 2 yahoo's, since they could have cost him a sale.

[davidpdx]

6. I hope you let King County know

I mean they will probably never find the idiot that did it, but it IS a violation of Federal law to tamper with the US Mail.

[annabanana]

13. 100% against the law!! Make sure your local police precinct knows.

Publicize it as much as you can by contacting your local papers, large & small. Contact your local Obama/McCain office. Warn your Blue friends.

Your ballot may not have been your street's only victim.

I personally think tearing up someone's VOTE is treasonous.

[dgibby]

16. Obama's campaign wants to know about this.

Go to his website. There's a place to report dirty tricks, etc.

Take whatever's left of your ballot to the proper authorities in your area.

Write a letter to the editor of your local paper, and e-mail your local radio, tv stations.

Notify the police and the post office. BTW, it might be possible for the police to lift fingerprints from the ballot and/or the mailbox.

I started using online bill paying after a group of criminals in our area were caught "check washing". Nothing is sacred anymore!

[glitch]

17. K & R EVERYBODY "if you vote absentee, use the goddam official drop-off points"

I agree with the above, put your ballot in a ziploc bag and take it to the Feds.

[helderheid]

18. For this very reason I mailed mine from a post office and not my home.

[RichardRay]

19. In Oregon you can check to see that it arrived.

Don't know about Washington, but in Oregon where there isn't anything except mail in voting you can call the county election offices where you voted to check to see that your ballot was received. Note that the ballot content is not known at that point, nor is it ever connected to your identity once it's been 'check in' on receipt, so it still constitutes a 'secret ballot' in that sense. Whether you chose to vote or not is a matter of record, but I don't see anything wrong with that.

[No Elephants]

20. Does anybody hear about Dems doing this crap? I never do. Only Pubs. *Tries not to hate*

[morillon]

21. That's a federal crime.

You can't touch ANYTHING in someone else's mailbox. I hope they catch that asshole.