Iowa college student receives his absentee ballot--and it was partially filled out!

[CoffeeCat]

I heard this on the radio, in Des Moines, coming home today. Daniel Cole, a college student (medical student) from Des Moines University was surprised to receive his absentee ballot in the mail because portions of it were filled out.

According to the article, "The races on the ballot that already had selections filled in were for: president; state representative; county auditor; county sheriff; and the Polk County Water and Land Legacy bond. Not all of the races had a selection filled in."

The article does not mention if the completed portions of the ballot were filled in for Republican or Democratic candidates. I looked up Daniel Cole and found him on LinkedIn. He is an environmental advocate and he also volunteered for the Peace Corp. He was a psych major as an undergrad and worked with children. Of course, I don't know for certain, but it appears that he is a Democrat and that he may have wanted to vote for Obama.

In the article, it does state that Daniel said that the Presidential candidate that was selected on the completed ballot--was NOT the Presidential candidate that he would have voted for.

So--it appears (and I will research this) that this college student was sent a ballot that was partially completed and all ready had Romney selected for President.

If Daniel Cole had not noticed that portions had been filled out--and he voted a straight Dem ticket--his ballot would have been invalid and thrown out.

Isn't that special? The criminals are getting bolder and bolder as election day draws near. Send out ballots to college students and other areas in which there are large Dem voting blocks--and fill out portions of the ballot. If they vote straight Dem--some of those pre-filled Republican selections would nullify the entire ballot.

http://www.desmoinesregister.com/article/20121022/NEWS/310220016/Voter-says-absentee-ballot-already-filled-in

[HooptieWagon]

1. Probably a Talibornagain county employee doing the" Lord's work".

[defacto7]

2. K&R n/t

[Control-Z]

3. WTF?

Is anyone keeping track of ALL the different tactics being used by the repukes to cheat in this election? There have been so many I've lost track. I would like to have a list and would have started one long ago had I known it would be this blatantly bad.

Criminal charges need to be filed against these crooks.

[renate]

9. true

This just isn't a conspiracy-theory thing... all these reports are really, really, really disturbing. There are just way too many examples for the problem to be dismissed. (yeah, dream on....)

I wonder what Obama's margin of victory would be if it weren't for these crimes.

[Journeyman]

4. Maybe some stoner in the mail house doodling & the marked ballot got shuffled back into the mix. . .

I've worked with mail houses for decades and I've seen plenty of odd happenings. Alternately, the print shop may have sent out some of the make readies. A lot of things happen while print material is readied for delivery, not all of it good or wise.

[xfundy]

6. No way.

Even the BIGGEST stoner couldn't be that stupid.

I've been waiting to hear stories about precisely this happening.

[Journeyman]

8. So you propose that a nefarious cabal conspired to mark up one person's ballot?. . .

A person they wouldn't even know the political leanings of, wouldn't even know who the recipient is going to be (since the name only goes on the envelope, not the material automatically stuffed into it), and that this nefarious conspiracy only filled out a partial ballot and risks a felony conviction for one unbelievably sloppy and perhaps pointless act?

And as for how unfreaking stupid a stoner can be, a mail house I worked for as a teenager sent out a monthly newsletter to Jewish readers across the country. Two -- not one, but two -- stoned fools in the mail house thought it would be funny one afternoon to open a random newsletter and draw swastikas in the margins and then mail them out.

But you don't believe any stoner could be that stupid. Yet you are willing to believe that members of some shadow conspiracy could be even more stupid and risk even more, risking potentially criminal charges.

Okay.

[bhcodem]

5. Iowa rules on straight ticket...

My ballot said you can vote straight ticket and if you want a different party's candidate for an individual office, you can still mark them and that particular office would not register for the straight ticket.

At any rate the rest of this story is outrageous!?????

[marions ghost]

7. Santa's little helpers

is what I call 'em.

And there are still people around who don't believe people would really do this....