Early Voting SNAFUs?!

As Election Day in America draws near, I'm really starting to hope that my previous prediction about Obama winning this election by a relatively large margin is correct. In just the past week, however, the polls show a tightening race in key battleground states, which makes me worry that we won't have a clear, decisive winner. I've told friends of mine that I see three potential outcomes in this Presidential election:

1) Obama could win in a Reagan-style electoral college landslide, not crushing McCain in the popular vote, but winning each state by just enough votes to turn the majority of the map Blue on Tuesday.
2) McCain could pull off a shocker on the magnitude of Dewey Defeats Truman (pictured below), and don't you believe for a second that the MSM won't be shouting from the rooftops that Obama won the election by 8 pm EST, long before all the results are in.

Or,

3) We could have another 50-50 split in the popular vote along the lines of the 2000 and 2004 elections, where each state becomes a battleground and perhaps the winner of the electoral college does not win the popular vote.




I'm really hoping that version number three does NOT come to pass on Tuesday, and here's why:

During the last two Presidential elections, when the popular vote was as close as it was (and with W. actually losing the popular vote in 2000 to Gore), the tightness of the vote caused people to charge the elections were stolen. There were the hanging chads in Florida in 2000 and charges of voter disenfranchisement, followed by legal challenges galore, which meant the election formally wasn't decided until the U.S. Supreme Court weighed in. I'm sure everyone remembers that result, and no one wants a return to 2000. Certainly, the Democrats will never let go of the idea that the 2000 election was stolen, which instantly reduced the legitimacy and authority of the Bush 43 Presidency by 50%.

Here's another reason why I don't want to see a very close vote: In my home state of Ohio, the Democrats have been very aggressive in getting people to vote early (if not often!) using the early voting procedures in that key battleground state. Ohio almost always plays a key role in determining the outcome in the electoral college, and this year should be no different. Here's the key problem with voting early in Ohio, however: As far as I can tell (no, I'm not going to read the Ohio voting regulations line by line to verify this, but numerous sources on the Internet seem to support this conclusion), early voting in Ohio is legally considered another version of absentee voting. In years past, Ohio required those voters wanting to cast early ballots to submit a reason why they could not vote on election day itself, like any other absentee voter must do. That law was changed in 2005, so now anyone can vote early, even without justification. But, the early vote cast STILL COUNTS AS AN ABSENTEE BALLOT!

Why is that so important, you ask? In most cases, absentee ballots are simply not counted after an election. I can't possibly provide statistics on this, but here's an illustrative example: If one candidate wins by 250,000 votes, and only 225,000 absentee ballots were cast, then there is no reason why election workers would open each absentee ballot and count them. They couldn't possibly change the result, even if each absentee ballot were cast for the losing candidate. Again, in most elections, absentee ballots are discarded after the regular ballots are counted. People still had the chance to vote, but their votes never get counted.

What I worry about with this election is that we will, once again, have a very tight electoral college race between Obama and McCain. If it really comes down to which candidate wins in Ohio and Florida (again!), then the status of those absentee ballots in Ohio could be very significant. I seem to remember absentee ballots in Florida submitted by U.S. military service members serving overseas being discarded after 2000 without ever being counted, according to the scenario I posed in the paragraph above. If a similar thing happens again this year, and all those Democrats who voted early in Ohio feel like their votes are not being counted, Hoo Boy! Watch Out!!!

You'll see cries of voter disenfranchisement, legal challenges, and people claiming the election is being stolen in Ohio that are orders of magnitude far greater than in 2000 and 2004!!!

The ironic part would be that the Democrats did it to themselves this year, actively encouraging thousands upon thousands of Obama supporters to vote early. My sister voted early and encouraged so many other Obama supporters to do likewise. If -- IF! -- the status of those absentee ballots turns out to be a key determinant in who wins the overall election, I don't think I want to hear the outcry.

Maybe I'll move to Canada.