Ballot Stuffing?

The Naples Daily News (henceforth "NDN") is running their "SW Florida Choice Awards" contest. How do I know this, since I don't read the NDN? Because I ended up with several trays of mailed-in entries for the NDN this morning. At first I was worried that the gate was stuck open, since stacker #95 normally doesn't fill up so quickly or so frequently on the first pass run. When I looked at the mail, I noticed that all of it was addressed to the same place. Many of the envelopes had printed address labels, and many of them were on corporate stock, with companies like real estate brokers and electronics stores well represented. I suspect some ballot stuffing was going on by those companies. Well, you can't blame them for trying, since it no doubt is an advertising coup to be able to claim that you are "the people's choice" for whatever product or service you are selling. I wonder what the carrier's reaction was this morning when he or she got eight trays of mail from stacker #33 on the second pass run? Probably a sigh of relief when it became evident that about seven of the trays were going to the same place. I suspect that this was not an isolated incident and that I'll be getting a lot of mail in those stackers until the NDN finishes their contest.

Also on the ballot stuffing topic, the bulletin board at work is encouraging us to call in and vote for Vonzell "Baby V" Solomon on "American Idol." She is a letter carrier here in Fort Myers, although the "American Idol" gig may lead to bigger and better things, even if she doesn't win. I don't watch the show myself, but I do think it would be cool for someone from here to win, so I'll be pulling for her.

Blog housekeeping: I've added a few links, mostly the "Just Folks" personal ones from my old blog and a few of the other ones that I still read on a frequent basis. I still have my old template with the old links, so if there are any of the old ones that you'd like to see added here, leave a request in the comments.