Last week we reported that voters in one New York county were receiving absentee ballots with "Barack OSAMA" listed as the Democratic Presidential candidate running against John McCain. This week, the beat goes on in Virginia, but in this case, it's not a typo (as the officials in NY claimed about their "Osama" ballots.)

The Republican Party of Virginia has sent absentee ballot request mailers to voters in the state, seeming to compare Barack Obama to Iran's Mahmoud Ahmadinijead, North Korea's Kim Jong-Il, Russia's Vladimir Putin, and Venezuela's Hugo Chavez.

"In today's dangerous world, appeasement is not a foreign policy," declares the outside of the mailer from the Republican Party of Virginia, followed by photographs of the four leaders and the text "America must face the threat of terror head-on" on the inside.

On the back of the envelope used to send in the voter's absentee ballot request is a photo of what some Virginia voters, understandably, believe to be Obama's eyes, with the words "America must look evil in the eye and never flinch."

The complete mailer, with more of the pages and images than we show below, can be downloaded here as a PDF.

Decide for yourself, and note the additional graphic, now added as an update, comparing Osama to Obama (and calling for the latter to be waterboarded) as found on the Sacramento County, CA Republican Party's website...

-- Brad Friedman

As you'll note by the increase in items in John Gideon's Daily Voting News, coverage of election concerns is again reaching a fevered pitch. When it comes to election machines, most of those reports come far too late to effect any real change (other than perhaps to help encourage election officials to ensure there will be plenty of paper ballots on hand, to make sure they tell voters and poll workers about them, and then to finally count those damned ballots!)

It's clear, however, that while most election officials likely do their job honestly, there are a great number of them around the country who have little interest in voters --- certain voters --- being allowed to excercise their franchise at all.

While there is little time to do much about the machines, as they prepare to melt down, there is still time do something on the front-end voter suppression issues. Yet sadly, despite a few spotty efforts around the country, it seems those parties that do have an interest in voters actually voting (such as Obama and the DNC) have little clue about what they are facing. At least from what I've been able to learn about coordinated plans --- or lack thereof --- to combat the Republican assault on voting.

And, all the while, as Democrats dither, the well-coordinated Republican War on Democracy continues apace around the country, with new and disturbing reports coming out almost by the hour, revealing the national extent of the GOP's anti-democracy campaign.

The effort, by a number of election officials in so-called "swing states" around the country, meant to keep Democratic-leaning voters, such as students and minorities, from casting votes this year, is remarkable and growing. It is, of course, also appalling...

As the youth and minority vote alone this year could make the difference in this year's Presidential election, the following chilling edict issued recently by the Registrar of Montgomery County, Virginia (home to Virginia Tech University), unfortunately comes as little surprise...and likely an omen as to what we'll be seeing much more of between her and November 4th...

Steve Heller has the complete dope at VelvetRevolution.us' Election Protection Strike Force site...

UPDATE 9/8/08: New York Times jumps into the furor on "the local registrar of elections [who] issued two releases incorrectly suggesting a range of dire possibilities for students who registered to vote at their college" and many other similar instances around the country.

In advance of an upcoming screening of the new documentary film, UNCOUNTED: The New Math of American Elections (Feb. 21 at Sojourner’s Church in Charlottesville, VA), David Swanson covers the problems with the electronic Hart Intercivic DRE voting systems in his own home town for the Charlottesville Weekly, and unearths the following gem...

Ah, well. Glad that's settled. God bless American faith-based democracy. Long may she wave. You folks in Charlottesville can now rest easy.

AP concurs...

The BRAD BLOG still calls on Allen to not concede!... (Seriously, we won't call him a whining, sore-loser, tin-foil hat wearing conspiracy theorist! Go for it, George! Make 'em prove those numbers if they can! See if you can verify that vote count!)

Guest blogged by Winter Patriot

Meet Mark Jenkins, a Republican from Gate City, Virginia, who supposedly lost the 2004 mayoral race, but who stood up for his rights, and for those of the voters, and for democracy in general, after it turned out that his opponent, incumbent Charles Dougherty, had captured nearly 90% of the absentee votes, but less than 51% of the overall total.

After the usual number of shenanigans and attempted shenanigans, the result has been overturned, and now the supposed winner faces time in prison! And --- guess what --- the people behind the shenanigans appear to have been --- are you ready for this --- well-connected Republicans!