Watch out, GOP: Absentee-ballot drive is Democrats ace

Des Moines Register ^ | 10/17/02 | DAVID YEPSEN

[TheLion]

They should require that you show up to vote. This would help put a stop to one of the democrat's favorite cheat/scams. I'm willing to bet that many of democrat absentee ballots will prove to be invalid, should someone bother to trace them to their source. I remember in the Maryland gub race a few years ago the Republican Saurbray's people traced more phoney absentee votes than the margin of victory by Glendening. It numbered around 5,000 phoney ballots. They tried like hell to get someone in the liberal courts of Md. to listen but they just ignored them.

[discostu]

The way it works down here is that there's a form to request to vote absentee which you can request from the registrar, but you don't have to. So the GOP sends a mostly filled out form (same as you'd get from the registrar if you called) to you which you need to sign and send in. The dems never did this, thus absentee balloting favors the party that has it's feces collated.
This year two days after i got my ballot request form (card really) from the GOP I got one from the registrar, so it might be a little more even, I'm not sure if the registrar sent to everybody or just those who have absenteed in the past. Either way I got my ballot yesterday and it's in the mail now.