Why is John McCain afraid to allow Floridians to vote?

The McCain campaign is caging Florida voters already:

A new pitch for John McCain's presidential campaign aimed at older Democratic voters is causing complaints by Democrats and concern by elections officials.

The piece, paid for by the Republican National Committee and authorized by McCain, tells voters it is seeking to double-check their "unconfirmed" party affiliations while asking for money. A letter signed by McCain tells the Democrats: "We have you registered as a Republican."

"I was a little bit shocked and a little bit surprised," said recipient Bill Smith, 81, of Tampa, who calls himself a lifelong Democrat and has been registered at his current address since 2000. The retired plant engineer is one of about a dozen senior citizens that Democratic Party leaders identified as recipients, all of them longtime Democrats.

The RNC declined to discuss the mailer, which Democrats said has landed in five counties: Duval, Hillsborough, Collier, Miami-Dade and Escambia.

[snip]

Some Democrats suspect a motive beyond raising money. The first-class GOP mailing has a "Do not forward" instruction on the envelope, meaning they will be returned to the GOP if a recipient has had mail forwarded, perhaps to a summer address, or has moved.

Letters returned as undeliverable can be compiled into "challenge lists" of unverifiable addresses and can be used to challenge voters' eligibility during early voting or on Election Day. The vote suppression technique is known as "vote caging."

"That postcard is a little disconcerting," said letter-recipient Steve Hemping of Naples, chairman of the Collier County Democratic Party and a state party official. "You don't know if they're going to use it to challenge somebody's right to vote."

Of course they're going to use it to challenge somebody's right to vote. I don't know about the other counties, but I do know that Collier County is as Republican as it gets.

Our commenter skywind is from Collier County, and she's going to be helping out Election Protection on Election Day down there. She writes:

If anybody’s looking for a worthy cause to donate to, $31.37 will pay for an hour of hotline time. And if anyone knows any lawyers, paralegals or law students, they need volunteers as well.

The only reason for Republicans to do this is that they now fear they can't win this election fairly. Let's not forget that John McCain wrote in his 2002 book Worth the Fighting For:

"I didn't decide to run for president to start a national crusade for the political reforms I believed in or to run a campaign as if it were some grand act of patriotism. In truth, I wanted to be president because it had become my ambition to be president. . . . In truth, I'd had the ambition for a long time."

And he's not going to let a bunch of Florida Democrats stand in his way.