Kerry and the Disoriented Vote

A friend of mine received this email:

"Have you heard about the absentee ballot campaign in Florida. I have a nephew in the thick of it. The deal is that you register people to vote and along with those already registered you get them to vote by absentee ballot to combat voting machine fraud. If you know any folks down there, by all means get them to participate."

Needless to say, this is a Democratic initiative. I have seen this type of thing going on in the 2000 election here in Michigan. The homeless, elderly and mentally ill are the usual targets of the absentee ballot campaign. Everyone knows that these people would all vote for the democrats if only they went to the polls on voting day (note: the previous sentence is sarcastic). However, many of the people I saw being "registered" and filling out absentee ballots with "help" were people who didn't even know the date, let alone who was the current president.

Also note the rationale in that email. There's going to be voting machine fraud (I'll give you three guesses who they consider is the evil mind behind it....) By saying this now, they have set up the perfect straw man if their candidate doesn't win. That Kerry might win Florida, AND there might be voting machine fraud doesn't occur to them, since that scenario is OK. As is absentee ballot fraud.

Sad. Very sad.