corrente

A case of undelivered absentee ballots unfolds in Florida (surprise!). Almost 60,000 absentee ballot requests never made it to the voters who asked for them.

U.S. Postal Service Inspector Del Alvarez, whose federal agency is independent from the U.S. Postal Service, said it had yet to be determined if the ballots reached the post office

"It's highly unlikely that 58,000 pieces of mail just disappeared," he said. "We're looking for it, we're trying to find it if in fact it was ever delivered to the postal service."

via Postal experts hunt for missing ballots in Fla.

Tried looking in the dumpsters, Del?

Meanwhile, with only 6 days to go until Big John wins in a popular vote landslide and takes the electoral by at least 20, not even rain and snow is stopping the cookout at the flea market parking lot across from early voting. Drove by this morning and it was going strong with a big tarp up to cover the area. There was even a guy walking back and forth along the median wearing a camo poncho, holding a Kerry/Edwards sign, and pointing people to the polls. I asked the lady cooking—someone new—what the plans were for the 2nd, and she said that they were planning to butcher a sheep and roast it. I told her if she needed an extra one, to let me know and she said sure, an extra one would be great. So I took one to her. If you can’t give money, give time. Or livestock. Or if it’s more your thing, herbal tea and sprout sandwiches. But give something, and hang out as near the polls as the law will allow. Why? Well, if you can’t think of any, Harold Meyerson of WaPo nails it:

With Election Day almost upon us, it's not clear whether President Bush is running a campaign or plotting a coup d'etat. By all accounts, Republicans are spending these last precious days devoting nearly as much energy to suppressing the Democratic vote as they are to mobilizing their own.

Time was when Republicans were at least embarrassed by their efforts to keep African Americans from the polls. Republican consultant Ed Rollins was all but drummed out of the profession after his efforts to pay black ministers to keep their congregants from voting in a 1993 New Jersey election came to light.

For George W. Bush, Karl Rove and their legion of genteel thugs, however, universal suffrage is just one more musty liberal ideal that threatens conservative rule. Today's Republicans have elevated vote suppression from a dirty secret to a public norm.

Here’s a registration-free link to the whole thing: The GOP's ShamefulVote Strategy

And visit AIGA: Get Out the Vote to download some cool "non-partisan" GOTV posters. I printed up ten and am off to make copies now. Since they're "non-partisan" but aimed a lot at young folks, I am then off to put them up where they'll do the most good... and maybe drive a few folks to the polls if I catch any who ain't been yet... if corrente doesn't hear much from me, it ain't because I don't care but because I'm nowhere near a computer...

Avast, me hearties! To the crow's nest, and a sharp eye out for slackers who need to get to the polls!