I'm sure we'll be seeing a lot of that later, particularly if John McCain wins the election. Somehow, somewhere, lots of Democrats will be prevented from voting or their votes won't count and it will be the evil Karl Rove and Diebold who did it.
Meanwhile, in the real world, a woman very nearly didn't get to cast her ballot because of a T-shirt.
Ginger Hurley could not have picked Sarah Palin out of a sea of hockey moms when she vacationed in Alaska this June.
For 10 days, Hurley fished and kayaked. She took a "flightseeing" excursion over Mount McKinley and a harbor cruise around the glaciers. She even picked up a few T-shirts. She did not visit the governor's mansion.
But by October, the association between the state and its governor, the Republican vice-presidential candidate, was so strong it nearly kept Hurley out of the voting booth.
The 40-year-old Houston Realtor was wearing one of her souvenir T-shirts when she went to cast her ballot at a Cypress polling place Oct. 26. A poll worker told her she would have to change the shirt if she wanted to vote.
Hurley, who votes in every election, is familiar with poll site etiquette. She knows not to wear campaign paraphernalia. She's never run into trouble before.
What, she asked, was wrong with her light blue cotton T-shirt, emblazoned with a moose head, fishing poles, and the words "Seward, Alaska"?
The word "Alaska," a poll worker answered.
"She said it could be misconstrued as support for a candidate," Hurley said.
She argued with the poll worker, but neither one backed down. The worker told Hurley she could go into the bathroom and flip her shirt inside-out. She even offered duct tape to cover the offending word. Hurley refused. Finally, outraged, she stormed out of the polling place.
"I couldn't believe she wouldn't let me vote because of my vacation T-shirt," Hurley said this week. "Every time I talk about it, my blood boils."
Cooler heads prevailed in the parking lot, and a campaign volunteer urged Hurley to check with the precinct judge overseeing the polling site.
The judge took a look at the shirt and let her vote. She didn't even need duct tape.
But Hurley said she felt unnecessarily harassed by the poll worker. Hurley did vote for the candidate from Alaska, but she said that had nothing to do with her choice of attire.
"I felt like I was being singled out," she said. "I don't think they would have given it a second look if it were a Delaware T-shirt."
Most newspapers ran stories in advance of early voting that informed voters not to wear campaign attire to the polls. I've seen people turned away or told to remove gear of their favorite candidate before being allowed to vote. But being told that "Alaska" on a shirt qualifies as campaign clothing? That's just silly. I couldn't imagine what would have happened in 2000 and 2004 if poll workers had tried to stop Texans from wearing T-shirts emblazoned with our state's name. That would have been sacreligious! ;)
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