However, I have noticed that when someone is unable to deal with a punch card ballot, figure out how to get to a poll, come up with one of dozens of simple methods of identification to vote, or manage to register to vote without poking themselves in an eye with a pencil, the vote lost is ALWAYS assumed to be a Democratic one.

Elitism (and its corollary paternalism) is bone-deep in the Democratic Party. One of the things that was funny about the last election was that Kerry, and his wife, for that matter, consistently projected this elitism like a searchlight, and the Democrats around him never saw it.