http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/17/us/politics/17colorado.html?_r=1&hp&oref=sloginThe presidential debate had barely ended Wednesday night when Kristin Marshall had her ballot on her lap, pen in hand, ready to vote. Three friends, all supporters of Senator Barack Obama, the Democratic nominee, had their ballots, too.
“Obama’s the second one down — don’t accidentally pick the first,” said Ms. Marshall, 27, a reference to the ballot placement of Senator John McCain, Mr. Obama’s Republican opponent, as her living room of Obama supporters erupted in laughter.
The traditional American vote — a solitary moment behind a black curtain in a booth, civics in secret — was never thus.
With Election Day less than three weeks away, the number of people voting by mail has exploded in Colorado, a closely divided state up for grabs in November. Nearly half of the state’s registered voters have requested ballots by mail, compelling the Obama and McCain campaigns to kick-start their get-out-the-vote efforts — and devise new and imaginative ones.
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Two recent statewide polls suggest a dead heat in Colorado. Both the latest CNN/Time poll and one conducted by Suffolk University in Boston give Mr. Obama a four-point advantage, an edge that falls within each poll’s margin of sampling error.