APPARENTLY PAST VOTERS are being culled from the registration lists faster than new ones can be added. It is either that or this region has been losing population in unreported amounts. Of course, it could also be that this election is not nearly as exciting as some like to pretend.

Those seem the only interpretations for learning, even as the first vote-by-mail absentee ballots went out in Northwest Georgia, that the state reported this region had lost another 2,363 potential participants although Floyd County showed a gain for September of 130.

What’s really interesting is learning at the same time that Floyd County had already mailed out about 800 requested absentee ballots. This is a state that, at the top of the ticket anyway, is not supposed to be competitive. While much money has been asked of campaign donors, almost none has been spent in visible ways although get-out-the-vote efforts tend to be less seen than billboards. Well, at least if yours is not one of the votes a party wants to assure is cast.

The other day, the writer got a call from one of the major parties (not the Libertarians) offering to mail an absentee ballot to his home. As some may recall, absentee/mail votes are the only ones exempt from the photo ID requirement at the polls under the supposed anti-fraud effort (there being no past fraud known in Georgia... except in the realm of absentees).

A huge upsurge in mail ballot requests has been reported in all states with Voter ID laws, perhaps in part because many registered voters of a certain maturity no longer hold driver’s licenses or other such photographic proof of existence. There are also registered voters known to never have had a license in the first place being of insufficient means to afford a car.

And lawyers of both parties are reported geared up for a “hanging chad” battle a la Bush-Gore contest in Florida over flaws in mailed ballots, which actually involve a lot of attention to minute details. “Look! ... That stamp is on upside down ... How can a voter who can’t see that possibly have filled out this ballot? Somebody must have filled it out for him/her. Challenge!” Pray for an Electoral College landslide, one way or the other, because if changing one state could again decide the winner then, like that check you are waiting for, it will likely be in the mail.