Halloween may be over, but ghosts may still be out and about during tomorrow’s Presidential election, and they might even determine the victor! Ghosts? Hard as it may be to believe, several states, including the so-called swing states of Ohio and West Virginia, do not disqualify votes cast by people who filed an absentee ballot but died prior to Election Day.

Additionally, many people are voting early this year, and it is impossible to discount the votes of those people who may die before November 2. Considering that thirty states now allow some form of early voting, it is probable that a number of votes in these states will have been cast by people who are now dead.

After the debacle of the 2000 election, the voting public is well aware that every vote does indeed count. Take for example the state of Florida where a 537-vote margin gave the election to George W. Bush. In a state that has a high population of senior citizens, it is estimated that 455 people of voting age die every day in Florida. The one-day death rate nearly equals the margin of the vote.

In some cases, an absentee ballot can be disqualified if the person who cast the vote dies prior to the election. However, in the case of early voting, where voters use standard voting machines, there is no way to determine for whom that person voted. In any event, this is one demographic to which politicians won’t be able to pander, at least in this election!