1. Update on this post, from the Los Angeles Times:

The owner of a firm that the California Republican Party hired to register tens of thousands of voters this year was arrested in Ontario late last night on suspicion of voter registration fraud.

State and local investigators allege that Mark Jacoby fraudulently registered himself to vote at a childhood California address where he no longer lives so he would appear to meet the legal requirement that signature gatherers be eligible to vote in California.

Jacoby’s arrest by state investigators and the Ontario Police Department comes after dozens of voters said they were duped into registering as Republicans by his firm, Young Political Majors, or YPM. The voters said YPM tricked them by saying they were signing a petition to toughen penalties against child molesters. The firm was paid $7 to $12 for every Californian it registered as a member of the GOP.

2. If you want to follow good, varied and multi-media news as it happens from Ohio, try Marc Kovic’s Capital Blog. He’s with the Dix news corp but does a really good job of posting video and primary source documents for everyone to read and follow.

3. A local Ohio clothing store in an upscale suburb is offering 15% off your purchase if you cast a straw ballot for Obama, McCain or undecided. This is legal, yes?  I wonder what they’ll do with the ballots – should we mess with them, just for fun?  And if I print out a whole bunch, could I get 15% off more than once, in addition to stuffing the ballot box?

4. For readers who are familiar with my claims that a McCain/Palin ticket engenders what it means to remain insular, the Salt Lake Tribune agrees with me:

The Salt Lake paper complained that “out of nowhere, and without proper vetting, the impetuous McCain picked Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin as his running mate. She quickly proved grievously underequipped to step into the presidency should McCain, at 72 and with a history of health problems, die in office. More than any single factor, McCain’s bad judgment in choosing the inarticulate, insular and ethically challenged Palin disqualifies him for the presidency.

5. Ohioans’ views of the Plain Dealer endorsement of Obama: Have Coffee Will Write, Ohio Daily Blog, Blogger Interrupted.

6. Scott Piepho, a law professor, blogger and former prosecutor did a nice round-up of the court cases that have involved Ohio’s Secretary of State Brunner. He includes a link to an article written just four months ago by an OSU law expert who predicted the very kind of wrangling we’re now witnessing, What Happens When Voters Don’t Match.

7. The Columbus Dispatch offers this simple (maybe overly simple?) Q&A called, “Q&A Voting Fraud.”

8. Just for fun, because I can’t be bothered with trying to count such lists at the end of a…well, you know, nothing ever seems to really end, lately.  Anyway – here’s a list of all endorsements for John McCain and here’s one for all endorsements of Barack Obama.  Obsess away.

9. Ohio – come on, for those of you who have never visited or lived here, what do you really think? Don’t answer that. Regardless, here’s a heartwarming blog entry about Perrysburg, Ohio which is a town that apparently could have been voted Town Least Likely To…have an Obama office, but as the photos demonstrate, not only do they have an Obama office, but it has…drum roll please: WHITE PEOPLE IN IT! Imagine that! In Ohio! (Sarcasm alert)  Yes, Virginia, even though there is definitely racism in Ohio?  There are also are an awful lot of people who could careless what the color of someone’s skin is when deciding whom to vote for.

Bonus note on Perrysburg: John McCain rallied not too far from there today, but seems as though they had a little trouble counting how many arrived.  This headline hyperlink looked like this:

but leads to an error page:

But if you go to the actual website, you’ll see that the number of attendees has been scaled back by 3,000:

No, I don’t usually go looking for anything like that but when I saw the first hyperlink and got to an error page, I just by habit went to the source and there I found an article about the rally with 7K people.

10. This actually feels a little dated given how quickly election narratives seem to move, but it’s only five days old: former Mayor of Cleveland Jane Campbell (a Democrat and Obama supporter) writes about how women don’t vote on gender.

11. Slipping in this tiny tribute to Media Bloggers Association founder Robert Cox – his On the Media appearance a couple of weeks ago.

12. An article about a report that says children are aware of white male monopoly in the White House.

13. Steve Schmidt just really creeps me out – I don’t know how else to say it.

14. A column on When Hate Wins.

15. If you’ve been assuaging concern about Sarah Palin’s far-right views, particularly on personal matters, by believing that those views might control what she’d do, but she would never inflict them on a nation of 300 million people who aren’t much like Alaskans? Think again:

Brody: On Constitutional marriage amendment , are, are you for something like that?

Palin: I am, in my own, state, I have voted along with the vast majority of Alaskans who had the opportunity to vote to amend our Constitution defining marriage as between one man and one woman. I wish on a federal level that that’s where we would go because I don’t support gay marriage. I’m not going to be out there judging individuals, sitting in a seat of judgment telling what they can and can’t do, should and should not do, but I certainly can express my own opinion here and take actions that I believe would be best for traditional marriage and that’s casting my votes and speaking up for traditional marriage that, that instrument that it’s the foundation of our society is that strong family and that’s based on that traditional definition of marriage, so I do support that.

16. “A cold calculated political decision” – Those are John McCain’s first words this morning describing how he feels about his selection of Sarah Palin for his VP.

17. I am not an American. Be sure to read the comments and read Dave Winer’s piece (which came first).

18. Are Palin supporters sexist? Or have we crossed some line that, since it’s really what the McCain/Palin campaign want, since it engenders voter support, then we are, in some odd way, condoning sexism?

19.  West Virginia white men saying they vote for the person without regard to color, and tales from North Carolina where some white post-church lunchgoers show less than a southern friendliness to Obama.

All for tonight.

UPDATE on #15: I knew this was coming because in the back of my fatigue-addled mind, I could have sworn that Palin’s now-stated position on a federal gay marriage ban was opposite John McCain’s stance.  If anyone comes across a tally of how many issues they disagree on and how many Biden and Obama disagree on, I’d love to see that.  Also, Palin clearly pushes the “I’ll have to talk to him about that I can change their minds” thing far more than I’ve ever heard Biden even suggest such a thing. This New Yorker piece on how Palin got to where she is highlights her ambition and I read it as supporting her approach in thinking that she will just change McCain’s mind.  But that’s me.