Caging the vote...

Well. I received an interesting email from the Republican Party of Florida this weekend. It was a ad stating that the Democrats have ignored the need of our solders overseas... Now, as you can tell by the title of this entry, whether you agree with that or not is not what I'm writing about today.


Most ads that come from political parties usually are for the solicitation of money, but this one was different. This ad requested that I ask for a vote by mail ballot. This was a first, and under normal situations, I would have just tossed it in the trash and moved on with my life. But I thought my wife would get a kick out of the idea that the "stupid" Repubs sent us this ad.

Well she took a closer look at it and noticed a few interesting "mistakes" that were made on the ad.

First, the name on the address was incorrect. it was Martin Stuart Fried. Stuart is not my middle name. Obviously, because I received the letter, the address was correct.

Second, and more importantly, the return portion of the letter that is supposed to go to the Supervisor of elections of the county that I live in was actually addressed to the County Supervisor of Elections for Miami-Dade county. I live in Broward County.

Third, the return address on the portion of the letter that goes back to to the supervisor of elections had a different address (in Miami no less) than mine.

Now you ask what does this all mean... Well, I heard listening to the radio about a underhanded tactic that the Republicans have been accused of using in the past to invalidate potentially democratic votes. It is called caging.

Here is the wikipedia defination of caging when it is used in political cotext: term applied to a technique of voter suppression.

Now when I look at how caging has been reported in the past, this is not exactly the same, but it could still be considered a form of vote supression.

I asked myself the following questions:

1. What would have happened if I had sent in this request for a vote-by-mail ballot?
2. Would I have just eliminated my vote for the 2008 election?
3. Would I have eliminated the vote of the individual that actually lives at the address the vote-by-mail ballot was sent to?
4. Could this have just been a mistake by the Republican Party of Florida?


Well, it looks like I at least found the answer to my last question.
It looks like I'm not the only one who received this types of letter, here is an example of a VERY similar letter that went to a voter in North Carolina. If you continue to read the article, it seems this is going on in all of the battleground states.

What does this say about American politics in general and the McCain campaign specifically... I'll let you decide.

Until next time, keep an eye on the mail you receive and if you have not already done so register to vote!

Martin