Ok, this is driving me nuts. If you never received your ABSENTEE application you don't "lose your vote". In fact "her vote would never have been counted" makes zero to no sense. She isn't registering to vote, nor sending in a ballot. Her vote would not have been counted only if she NEVER bothered to vote. Not because the county never got her application for absentee or because the county never mailed it out. These things can happen regardless of sending an application to the right address.

The real issue might be expecting an absentee and forgetting you never got one in time to request ANOTHER one. Worst case you would have to vote in person. It also appears in WI that your application can be used to update voter registration information, so that might complicate things.

Anyone repeating this "disenfranchise" or "lose your vote" attached to these McCain amateur absentee applications is doing damage to REAL attempts by the GOP to disenfranchise. (Such as foreclosure list caging, etc.). Besides, it serves people right for these convenience tactics that somehow "GOTV". Just print of the form from the state/county/jurisdiction website, or visit a library and fill out an official looking form. Not one that comes on the back of a glossy campaign attack ad.

(I'm not directing this at anyone, just the media and various quotes of people incorrectly saying their vote won't count related to the absentee thing.)

I just notices the biggest sin..

"campaign shenanigans and voter fraud"

VOTER FRAUD is the fictional crisis that Rethugs use to pass VoterID laws and various modern era Jim Crows to make it harder to vote. There are very very very few cases of voter fraud in this country.

VOTING FRAUD is the dirty tricks used by Rovian operatives to confuse voters or gum up the election process, such as voting machine allocation or rigged recounts. This appears to be an attempt to cause mass confusion and extra work for elections officials in Ohio and MI and WI to cause maximal delay in official's ability to register absentee voters. They want the maximal amount of voters to wait in lines on election day. Estimates from Ohio are now predicting much longer lines in counties using DRE touchscreens (even compared to 2004) because of much longer ballots (in spite of more voting machines).

[Gosh, I'm seeing a connection where you are not; maybe I will recheck my wiring:-]

To my eyes, this is just one arm of a widespread and sometimes subtle program of vote suppression by deception and misdirection. Wisconsin is not Alabama; you can't just show up on people's lawns with white robes and hood and burning crosses. Too steal an election these days you have to go high-tech. There have been a number of "innocent" mailers coming out from McCain operatives that are very confusing to the voters, predominantly directed at previous Democratic voters or to neighborhoods that from a socioeconomic standpoint (read: black) might be expected to support Obama.

This one works by gumming up the absentee ballot operation. If the voter is a trusting sort, they might just fill in the application and thereby have their request delayed to the point that it cannot be fulfilled. The voter then will wait, trustingly, only to realize too late to reapply that they are not going to be able to use the absentee system. Your solution, just hie yourself on down to the polling place on Election Day, doesn't work if the person is actually going to be absent or if physical disability is the restricting issue.

There's been too much of this for me to believe that it isn't deliberate on the Republican Party's part. This is what Rove was tasked to set up, why he left the White House when he did, and why he's a consultant to McCain. They can't anymore just shoot everyone with a dark skin who shows up to vote; instead, they are using a multiplicity of small-ball efforts including registration purges, you-have-the-same-name-as-a-felon blocking maneuvers, and these deliberately confusing and disingenuous mailers. A few votes here, a few votes there and in a close state like Wisconsin or Indiana or Ohio or Michigan the election can be turned.

The terminology used to describe what is happening was imprecise, but the net of it is spot-on. This is voter-suppression, sure and certain; high-tech and all, but ratfucking none the less.