Why Can’t Democrats Vote?

I guess it must be true what the Democrats say about their voters having trouble figuring out ballots. The Minneapolis Star Tribune reported this morning that one of Minnesota’s Democratic electors cast a vote for John Edwards for President, instead of John Kerry. This was apparently an accident rather than a protest or a “faithless elector”:

“It was perhaps a senior moment,” said elector Michael Meuers, 60, a Bemidji marketing consultant for a health care firm, the second-youngest member of the Minnesota delegation to the Electoral College.
Meuers said he was certain that the Edwards ballot wasn’t his, but he noted that “both the candidates were named John, and the ballots looked pretty much alike.”

My partner John Beukema comments:

If it truly was a mistake, then Democrats have more to worry about than the inability of elderly members of their electorate to figure out arguably confusing “butterfly” ballots in Florida; here we have a hand-picked elector, presumably far better informed than the average voter, who cannot figure out whether he/she is writing his/her vote on the ballot labeled “President” or the one labeled “Vice President.”

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