Eggcorn Forum

The final cut on the debut album by rockers De Novo Dahl is called “Absentee Ballad.” Since I found the song itself tedious, I shut it off and googled its title: 3000 hits, though most of those are repetitions, intentional fakecorns, the names of songs by obscure rock bands, etc. – I suspect there are a few hundred examples of the authentic reshaping. I’d like to believe that people are thinking of broadside ballads, and making a mental connection between the pieces of paper absentee ballots are printed on and the broadside sheets themselves. But this is probably just a malapropism. Examples:

But now those caniving Dems have proposed a bill that would make absentee ballads an almost impossible to get thing.
http://www.iraqi-freedom.com/chat/index … &f=1&t=336

The same year 5000 Poles vote by absentee ballad in Polands national elections.
http://www.greenpointusa.com/timeline/main2.htm

Has no one ever heard of an absentee ballad?
http://jdm3.blogspot.com/2004_09_01_jdm3_archive.html

I had no idea about that policy and was too late for an absentee ballad, so I was unable to vote.
http://homepages.wmich.edu/~t4anders/more%20stuff.html

She’s a U.S. citizen who’s currently living in Jerusalem and voted with an absentee ballad.
http://sfpnn.com/PNNs/PNN2004/10202004.htm