How John McCain and Sarah Palin will win the election

...in true Republican fashion, by mass disenfranchisement:

Ohio election officials are sending out a mass mailer stamped “do not forward” to all registered voters today (Sept. 5) with an absentee ballot application and other important notices for Nov. 4.

What’s important here is not so much what’s going out as what’s being returned to sender.

Unbeknownst to the would-be recipients, the same mailer — just 60 days before the election — has the potential to determine their eligibility to vote, challenged not by election officials but by partisan opposition.

A similar mailer in March netted nondeliverable mail from almost 600,000 registered voters in just five Ohio counties who could now have their ballots thrown out for voting under the wrong address.

The National Voter Registration Act prohibits any state from purging names from the voting rolls within 90 days of an election.

The law doesn’t, however, preclude mass partisan challenges on or shortly before Election Day — known as voter caging — based on the same returned envelopes from state-sponsored mailers like the ones in Ohio and others going out across the country.

In 2004, the year the national election hinged on results from Ohio, the Ohio Republican Party challenged 35,000 voters based on returned mail from the GOP's own friendly reminder notices. From 2004 to 2006, Republicans challenged 77,000 voters this way nationwide. A consent decree issued in 1982 and amended in 1987 enjoins the GOP from instituting “ballot security programs” that focus on minority voters.

No evidence so far suggests Republicans — vote caging is essentially a GOP sport — have mounted a caging campaign this year. Yet, in July, Franklin County Election Director and County GOP Chairman Doug Preisse told reporters he didn’t rule out challenges before November, particularly because of increased home foreclosures, which would make failures to change address on voter registration records more common.

A challenged voter will likely cast a provisional ballot, which often requires voters to return to election divisions to prove their identity and address. Nearly a third of all 1.6 million provisional ballots cast in 2004 were thrown out.

It all becomes clear now, doesn't it? It's almost enough to make you think that the easy credit "liar loans" and interest-only mortgages were specifically designed to result in massive foreclosures and the accompanying mass dislocation of lower-income (read: Democratic) voters all across the country. Send them non-forwardable mailings at the address from which they were foreclosed, and bingo! An invalid voter.

You've got to hand it to the Republicans -- they sure know how to cover all the bases. It will be interesting to see how these voters respond when they show up and aren't allowed to vote -- and how Americans will respond when they find out that in addition to being homeless, John McCain's health plan consists of yanking the rug out from under them and giving them a tax credit of only $2500 to $5000 with which to buy a $12,000/year family health insurance policy. But of course John McCain would think that $5000 is enough; after all, HE has the best health insurance in the country, and who else matters? And by the way, did you know that he was a POW?

MONDAY UPDATE: Kansas, Michigan, and Louisiana are also illegally purging their voter rolls.