Knowing Is Half The Battle

Voters were hit in the face with what is being described as a ‘typographical error’ on absentee ballots in New York.

Earlier this year, Barack Obama’s name was misspelled on 2,000 absentee ballots in Volusia County, FL back in January. His first name was on the ballot as Barak.

Now, some 300 ballots in Rensselaer County, New York have his name listed as Barack Osama. This is a travesty.

At some point, someone has to take ownership of the mockery this country is making of our presidential election. A typographical error would be Obamma, or Onama, or any other letter on the keyboard that sits close to the letters used to actually spell Obama.

But in my opinion, the ’s’ is deliberate.

Election officials claim the typo is a mistake of “human error” and say it’s “very unfortunate” that the misspelled ballot reminds Americans of the name of Osama bin Laden.

My question is this.. would you be able to cast a vote for Barack Osama? Or would flashbacks of the September 11 attacks on the very state that you live in come to mind? Would you think of the panic the terror and the ruins that your community went through? Would visions of planes hitting the Twin Towers come to mind? Or would you think of the countless hours the NYPD and the NYFD spent digging for bodies?

Would you be able to bring yourself to cast that vote?

I know I wouldn’t. And that is the reaction I think the election officials are hoping for, the unwillingness of New Yorkers to vote for someone with the name Osama.

“This was a typo,” said Republican Commissioner Larry Bugbee. “We have three different staff members who proof these things and somehow the typo got by us.”

Three different staff members read the proof and no one caught the fact that Obama’s name was spelled Osama?

I find that hard to swallow.

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