National Review’s Jim Geraghty has a tremendously important story. Jon Corzine is trying to build an absentee ballot slush fund to win a recount in the New Jersey Governor’s race. Basically, the Democratic Party has asked the Secretary of State to send provisional absentee ballots out to people whose signatures on their absentee ballot requests don’t match:

In a development that is depressingly predictable, the New Jersey Democratic party is asking the state to provide provisional ballots for all these voters. Those ballots could, presumably, be used to overcome any narrow lead by Republican Chris Christie over Democrat Jon Corzine on Election Day.

Now, let’s be clear how the absentee process works in New Jersey. Third parties can pick up and return absentee ballots.  A couple of weeks ago, a Democratic operative in Atlantic City plead guilty to a lesser charge of tampering with ballots. One practice mentioned in the indictment was the person picking up ballots from people and throwing them out if they weren’t for his candidate.  Another example was:

They allegedly solicited applications for messenger absentee ballots from individuals not qualified to receive them and had the voters not fill in the name of the messenger, so they could fraudulently designate themselves as the authorized messengers or bearers.

And:

They allegedly obtained messenger ballots from the county clerk and submitted them to the board of elections as vote s on behalf of voters who, in fact, never received or voted the ballots or, in some cases, were given only the security envelope for the ballot and were told to sign it. Those voters were not given the opportunity to vote in most instances.

So when ballots are getting into the hands of people who didn’t even ask for them, you have to wonder what is going on.

Republican former U.S. Attorney Christopher Christie leads incumbent governor John Corzine (D) by nine percentage points, 42-33, in a new poll released by Fairleigh Dickinson University. The results should boost confidence among NJ GOP voters that Christie can take down the increasingly unpopular Corzine. Fifty-six percent of respondents said that they have a negative opinion of Corzine, a -23 rating, compared to 31% who had a favorable impression of the corruption-fighting Christie, a +19 spread. Still, 58% said that they had not heard enough about Christie to have an opinion, a number that will only go down as the campaign progresses.

Surprisingly, Christie’s Republican primary challenger, former Bogota mayor Steve Lonegan, also bests Corzine in a head-to-head matchup, 37-36. Lonegan is not as well known as Christie, and trails him in the primary by 43-21%.

The bottom line in these numbers is that New Jersey Republicans have a golden opportunity to take down Corzine in November, if they can avoid a bruising primary fight. Such a victory, coupled with a win in Virginia’s gubernatorial contest, could spark a Republican resurgence heading into the 2010 Congressional elections. Both candidates in New Jersey should keep their eyes on the prize – defeating Corzine – and avoid attacks on each other, so as not to play into Corzine’s hands. If they can manage that, New Jersey could become a November bellwether.