I’ve only received two pieces of election mail in advance of tomorrow’s election, both of which were misguided.
– Today, a Chinese-language piece from Blair Hull. Targeting Chinese-surname voters is nothing new. It would seem easy to do, since there aren’t that many to begin with (one consequence of having such an old civilization), but the number of different English spellings of each name would considerably toughen the task; plus, most voters named Lee or Young aren’t Chinese.

What makes this most peculiar is that the mail was sent to neither my brother nor I, who are both registered voters at this address — instead, it was sent to my father, who has never lived or voted in Illinois. Even if he was convinced to go and vote for Blair Hull, he’d have to register first, and registration closed a month ago. So, the Hull campaign is so flush with cash that it’ll send random mailings out to random marketers’ lists without even bothering to cross-check them against voter lists.

– On Saturday, a desperate call for help. “I NEED your HELP!!! Help Save the 32nd Ward Republican Organization!!! WRITE-IN & Re-Elect John Curry 32nd Ward Republican Committeeman.” Four candidates filed to be Republican committeeman in the 32nd, one of the few Chicago wards to register more than a thousand Republican votes. However, two of the candidates challenged the other two, the other two counter-challenged, and the Board of Elections threw all of them off the ballot — throwing into question the existence of a 32nd Ward GOP. Curry charges that “the Chicago Democratic machine pulled out all the stops and got me kicked off the ballot.” Um, sure.

At least I know why I received this; I voted as a spoiler in the 2002 Republican primary, and I’ve been marked a Republican ever since. I even got a robocall a few weeks ago urging me to “support our President and our troops” by voting Republican. Sure.