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Gee, I wonder why ? If you remember the last mid-term election, you’re in the minority. While the state and nation was approaching the precipice of economic tumult, folks were still working, their home values hadn’t yet tumbled, and there were few budget crisis headlines. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, whose current approval rating is 28 percent, glided to victory in 1998 with 56 percent of the vote. Not that many bothered voting – just 39 percent of the state’s eligible adults and 56 percent of those actually registered cast ballots. It’s a different story this time. As of Thursday, 225,215 mail ballots had been received by the Orange County elections office. Four years ago, it was 148,684 on the Thursday before the November election. About 685,000 county voters requested mail ballots this year, some 100,000 more than 2006, according to Registrar of Voters Neal Kelley. Heightened interest seems to be the cause, not simply a shift in voters from the polling place to the mail box. The percentage of voters casting mail ballots has leveled off around 50 percent in recent years. “Statewide, everybody’s seeing higher than average returns,” Kelley said. Nothing like billions in state debt, double-digit unemployment, economic doldrums and a few Tea Parties to invigorate the democratic process. Conservatives have been waiting for this election for months, and I guarantee you the majority of those early returns are coming from people anxious to vote against the liberal agenda. I just wonder how much fraud is included in those early numbers?