According to today's
St Pete Times, a Republican candidate for the Florida House of Representatives is going off-message in his absentee ballot flyer. The flyer notes that Democrats are demanding a paper trail and notes that absentee ballots guarantee a paper record of the vote.
Before y'all go nuts, though, keep in mind that the GOP in this state was into absentee ballots way before e-voting became an issue. When we moved here in 1999, my husband registered as a Republican...as a result, in 2000 he got at least four GOP mailings with a tear-off form to order an absentee ballot from the local Supervisor of Elections. It's how the GOP does GOTV in this state.
Although I don't believe that DRE (e-voting) is intrinsicly unreliable (as long as the machines are thoroughly audited/certified and the software code is available for inspection), I suggested to my local Democratic Party organzation that we ought to do at least one such mailing--they said it was impossible, that it would cost over $900,000 for Pinellas County alone.
Personally, I think our main push should be to support Sen. Nelson's call for a thorough audit on the DRE's to be sure they record votes accurately. Most people are going to be voting on them--actually, most voters (based on my experience as a poll worker) greatly prefer e-voting to punch cards. It would be great, though, if somebody could put together the money and resources to get an absentee ballot mailing to Democrats this year.