Why Is The Bush Campaign Website Blocked?

I know it’s not particularly new, but why is George W Bush’s website inaccessible outside the U.S.?

Netcraft reported last week that the site could not be reached except by users in North America. Even entering the numbered IP address appears to have been blocked. (GeorgeWBush.co.uk works fine, as does GeorgeWBush.org, but then they’re not exactly under Bush’s control.)

Netcraft’s Prettejohn is quoted by the BBC as speculating it could be an effort to ensure the website stays online during the last few days of the election campaign. But what about all the overseas voters? A Bush campaign spokesman is quoted as saying that it was done for security reasons.

To me what is lacking in coverage of this issue is the notion that the blocking may actually have an impact on the election. In 2000 Bush’s victory was certified only after overseas ballots were counted. Of course, many overseas Americans have already voted, but both parties are urging last-minute voters to fill in absentee ballots and fax them home.

AP reports that “The complicated issue of counting absentee ballots also added to the confusing array of new machines and new state voting regulations prompted by the debacle of the last race for the White House.” States, AP says, have “differing and confusing rules about deadlines for such ballots. Some states, for example, allow absentee votes to be counted days after the election, provided they are postmarked by Nov. 2. Others mandate that mailed ballots received after Election Day do not count.” On top of that, election officials in more than a dozen states missed the recommended deadline for mailing absentee ballots overseas, meaning soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan might not get them in time to vote.

In light of this looming absentee ballot issue, why would Bush’s campaign risk losing votes by closing down the site? One argument is they’re short of money, but I can’t believe that. Another is fear of too much traffic — but then add more servers. Fear of being brought down by a Denial Of Service (DDoS) attack? Makes sense — and it may have been sparked by any earlier outage blamed by some on such an attack. But with both candidates chasing every vote they can it just does not make sense to me.

If it was just blocking the DNS name (georgewbush.com) that would make sense. But why block the IP number too (not originally blocked; it seems to have happened later)? How many users are going to access the website that way? It seems to be a deliberate attempt to block every single overseas user. Which to me means they fear a DDoS attack. Another weird episode.