Unsafe at Any Speed

From our department of curiously timed stories comes a gem from CBS. In the wake of their exposure for using forged documents in their recent attack on President Bush's guard service, the 'Tiffany Network' asks

Kerry Campaign: What Went Wrong?

But certainly not everything has gone wrong for the Democrats, as they recently succeeded in assuring that US Soldiers in Iraq who are Florida citizens will not be able to vote for Ralph Nader for president.

Less than 11 hours before Secretary of State Glenda Hood is supposed to certify the ballots for 67 counties - which signals elections supervisors to mail thousands of ballots to Floridians overseas, including troops in Iraq - (Leon County circuit Judge Kevin) Davey ruled that the Reform Party is no longer a real political party. Therefore, he held that Nader's certification as the Reform candidate did not meet Florida laws, which require a presidential candidate to get nearly 100,000 voter signatures or be nominated by a national convention.

"I don't want to disenfranchise anybody, especially those folks who are defending us overseas," Davey said, stretching and stifling a yawn after a seven-hour hearing in which attorneys for Democratic Party Chairman Scott Maddox and two Reform Party members squared off against lawyers for Hood and the Reform Party of Florida.

Nader responds: "This is nothing more than a judge responding to the political imperatives of a nervous and corrupt Democratic Party."

I respond: I'm a Florida absentee voter, as are my wife and son. I haven't seen anything this reprehensible since... well, Gore 2000.

But wait - there's more. If I weren't getting ready for a long trip I'd do my duty as a blogger and explore the following in more detail. But since time is short I'll simply quote and link a fellow American in Germany:

The kerry campaign is sending waves of operatives to other countries to request absentee ballots for ex-patriates, non citizens who were falsely registered as voters due to flaws in the motor voter registrations, and any other absentee voter they can muster. Since I have a personal friend directly involved in this effort, who refused to disclose the source of the funding because of legal questions (both foreign and domestic), I know for sure that this is actively going on in many countries as we speak. This same person showed me the voter registration card of his non-citizen wife, that had been issued to her because she got a Driver's License. The card came to his home long after she had returned to her country of citizenship.

I have no first hand info to add to that, so I'd "Rather" not speculate further. But I do know the Kerry campaign has sent folks to rally the absentee voters, though I certainly assume they mean legal ones.

But as I noted in comments at David's Medienkritik on the topic, I'm curious as to why Munich over the Kaiserslautern military community - since the largest population of Americans outside of America (40k) reside here. Suppose Kerry prefers Bayern Munchen to the Rote Teufel?