After hearing about the now infamous Obama/Osama slips (John Ashcroft, Mitt Romney, etc.), plus the thousands of intentional “jokes” (Rush Limbaugh, Liz Trotta) on an almost weekly basis, one would think that the election and campaign mix-ups and mistakes would have run out by now. But a translated letter sent out to Spanish-speaking voters in Westchester, New York told potential voters that election day was November 9th instead of November 4th.

This unbelievable oversight was in the Spanish language section of a letter on voting procedure in Westchester, New York that was sent out by the Board of Elections.  This is the very same New York Board of Elections that sent out over four hundred absentee ballots with an option to vote for “Barack Osama” (instead of “Barack Obama”).  The letter with the incorrect election day is said to have been sent to nearly twenty-thousand people.

Will all of this have an effect on election results? Doubtful. Is this a lesson on the importance of proofing? Definitely.

With the U.S. presidential election around the corner, both John McCain and Barack Obama are fighting harder and harder for the Hispanic vote. McCain however, has been accused of trying to take advantage of the supposed Spanish-English language barrier to make contradictory claims to English and Spanish speaking voters.

It is ironic that McCain would want anything related to his campaign translated, given that he voted to “amend title 4 United States Code, to declare English as the national language of the United States.” And although he has a website in Spanish, Spanish radio ads, and numerous translated print ads, until now they have been fairly straight forward. The new ad however, in which McCain is portrayed as being dedicated to improving guest-worker programs and the path to citizenship, goes directly against his English language position:

“[I] have pledged that it would be among my highest priorities to secure our borders first, and only after we achieved widespread consensus that our borders are secure, would we address other aspects of the problem in a way that defends the rule of law and does not encourage another wave of illegal immigration.”

So what is McCain’s real stance? Obama supporters say it depends on who he’s talking to.