Reports of the ballots began surfacing in Ohio more than a week ago, and in the case of that state, the problem was relatively straight-forward. A small note at the top of the ballot is a statement that reads: "I am a qualified elector and would like to receive an Absentee Ballot for the November 4, 2008 General Election." Next to the statement is a small checkbox.

The box is easy to miss, and on Thursday, the Ohio Secretary of State ordered applications to be rejected if the box was not checked. While it's not clear how many ballots have been disallowed, Hamilton County election officials said on Friday they have already invalidated more than 740 ballots. Ohio State election officials estimate as many as a million ballots may have been mailed to voters in that state alone.

This is not the first time an absentee ballot such as the one sent out by McCain campaign officials has surfaced in Ohio. A form almost identical to the McCain application was used by Ohio Republicans during registration for a 2007 special election. State election officials said that no complaints were lodged at that time about the ballots.

Similiar ballots have reportedly been sent to registered voters in a number of states. In Wisconsin, Minnesota, Florida, Pennsylvania, Missouri, and Iowa the ballots seem to target primarily registered Democrats or voters otherwise identified as possible Obama voters. In many cases, the ballots appear to have the address of the incorrect election office, and often an office in the wrong state.

Sending the absentee ballot to the wrong election office would almost certainly ensure it wouldn't be counted. And in most case, the voter attempting to cast the ballot would never learn of the problem in time to vote at their local precinct.

In the battleground state of Missouri, the problem is even more complex. The McCain campaign has admitted it has sent out the ballots to voters of both parties.

"It's a convenience factor, a reminder to vote," Jack Jackson, the co-chair of the Missouri McCain committee told a St. Louis TV station earlier in the week.

But Missouri has a strict set of guidelines on who can vote absentee. And convenience is not a valid reason. That leads to a scenerio where absentee votes could be successfully challenged by Republicans who suspect that a vote was cast by someone who did not fit the state's mandated guidelines.

On Friday, Ryan Hobart, the Spokesperson for the Missouri Secretary of State's office issued the following statement:

"Voters need to read the fine print on mailers like this because there are specific requirements for absentee voting in Missouri."

"Currently, to vote absentee, voters are required to have an excuse, like being out of town on Election Day. If they falsely make such a claim, they could be prosecuted with a felony and lose their right to vote."

Voters in Michigan, Colorado, Iowa, Nevada and several other states have reported receiving automated phone calls from the McCain Campaign, asking for permission to send an absentee ballot. Several voters in Colorado have complained they were then sent ballots with the return address of an Ohio Election Board, and similiar reports from other states have complained the ballot had the incorrect return address or some other mistake which would disallow the ballot.

At the same time reports of the incorrect or misleading ballots are surfacing, Republicans in several of the same states are leading moves to challenge voters who have registered by mail and/or voted with an absentee ballot.

In Wisconsin, the Attorney General J.B. Van Hollen, a Republican, filed the lawsuit last Monday in to get ineligible voters off the rolls. It called for a court order mandating the Government Accountability Board to cross-check voters who have registered since Jan. 1, 2006, when federal Help America Vote Act legislation required that states implement a voter database to cross-check voter registrations with Department of Transportation, criminal and death records.

A spokesperson for the Obama campaign said on Sunday the campaign was aware of the compaints and was collecting examples of the ballots. They plan to issue an official response "soon."