Obama misspelled as 'Osama' on Rensselaer County ballots Friday, October 10, 2008 By Bob Conner (Contact) Gazette Reporter
TROY — Three hundred absentee ballots have been mailed out in Rensselaer County listing the name of the Democratic presidential candidate as Barack "Osama" instead of Barack Obama. The county Board of Elections issued a statement Friday acknowledging “a typographical error” was made “on only 300 out of more than 4,000 absentee ballots that will be mailed out this month. The Board of Elections acted quickly to correct the typographical error and regrets the error.” On a keyboard, the letters "s" and "b" are not in proximity so the mistake does not seem to be the most common form of typographical error. “The error was not deliberate and the Board of Elections is continuing to fairly manage the upcoming general election in a bipartisan and cooperative manner,” the statement said. Neither of the elections commissioners, Republican Larry Bugbee or Democrat Edward McDonough, was available for comment Friday, and no one at the board could provide further information. The board did not acknowledge that the error involved substituting "Osama" for "Obama." Rensselaer County Executive Kathleen Jimino issued a statement saying: “It is apparent that the Board of Elections made a serious error in the misspelling of Senator Obama’s name on what I am told are 300 absentee ballots. I will be discussing my concerns regarding this obviously unacceptable error with the leadership of the Rensselaer County Legislature [which] by County Charter is responsible for the oversight of the Board of Elections.” It’s not the first time that the name of the Democratic senator from Illinois has been confused with that of the world’s most notorious terrorist, Osama bin Laden. Politicians from Democrat Ted Kennedy to Republican Mitt Romney have made the same slip. But it may be the first time it’s been done on an election ballot. The mistake occurs in the most prominent position on the ballot, at the top left hand corner of the candidate lists, on the Democratic line. Obama’s name is spelled correctly below, on the Working Families Party line. Rensselaer County Democratic Chairman Tom Wade, himself a former county elections commissioner, said he was confident it was a mistake due to human error, and not to any ill intent. The board operates in a bipartisan manner, he said, with people from both parties reviewing everything that goes out. “I truly wish it had not happened,” he said. “They don’t know how it happened, either.” The Board of Elections, Wade said, “is a busy, busy beehive of a place at this time of year.” The board prints its own ballots, he said, and this might be a signal that it would make more sense to put the printing work out to bid. The Obama campaign’s Capital Region office referred questions to its chairman, Albany Councilman Corey Ellis, who could not be reached for comment.
Blame computer for Obama-Osama goof, officials say
By BOB GARDINIER, Staff writer Last updated: 1:56 p.m., Tuesday, October 21, 2008
TROY -- County elections officials are blaming a computer spell-checking program for the error in hundreds of mailed absentee ballots that spelled Barack Obama's surname "Osama."
A county legislator said today that a Democratic Board of Elections worker initially accepted responsibility for the error.
"We heard that she immediately put in her resignation but it was turned down," said District 2 Legislator Keith A. Hammond, a Democrat. "Whether it was done in jest or in error, it is still an embarrassing mistake but we now need to move on to more important issues."
The story broke Oct. 10 when a Sand Lake voter called the Times Union saying he received an absentee ballot in the mail on which row 1A had Barack Obama's name as "Barack Osama."
Elections officials said at the time that the county is the only one in the state that prints its ballots in-house and Democratic workers are responsible for writing and editing Democratic candidates names and Republicans take care of their own candidates. Board of Elections officials from both sides of the aisle said it was an honest typo, but the majority of e-mail responses the Times Union got to the story were from those who believed it was done intentionally.
Board of Elections officials have not returned calls for comment.
From here on out we can ALWAYS blame the AI.......I'm waiting breathlessly for the cookie jar thief to out him/her self.......ohhhh, the next generation will have a freakin' blast with this one.......
...you are a product of your environment, your environment is a product of your priorities, your priorities are a product of you......
The replacement of morality and conscience with law produces a deadly paradox.
STOP BEING GOOD DEMOCRATS---STOP BEING GOOD REPUBLICANS--START BEING GOOD AMERICANS
It is amazing how the republicans get blamed for this stuff when it is a bi-partisan commission in local and state boards of elections. The person who wrote the name wrong WAS a democrat and yet people are outraged at the dirty tricks of the rascally republicans! How riotous that is!
"While Foreign Terrorists were plotting to murder and maim using homemade bombs in Boston, Democrap officials in Washington DC, Albany and here were busy watching ME and other law abiding American Citizens who are gun owners and taxpayers, in an effort to blame the nation's lack of security on US so that they could have a political scapegoat."
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