Dear Clark County

Three days ago, Dawn Brink, who works at the local hospital in Clark County, Ohio, thumbed through the day's mail and noticed a white envelope with a series of strange stamps affixed to the top-right corner, and the word "Deutschland" written across the front in plain, clear hand.

Brink doesn't get much mail from abroad, and she tore into the letter excitedly.

"I apologize in advance if the purpose of this letter offends you," it began. "If someone from another country wrote a letter to me [and told me how to vote], I would say, 'It's none of your business.' But in this case and at this point in time, some action needs to be taken to get George Bush removed from office before even more damage is done to U.S. relations and the world."

After the first paragraph, Brink deduced that she had received the letter through "Operation Clark County," an ambitious if perhaps strategically flawed effort by the UK's left-leaning Guardian newspaper to influence the American election through a letter-writing campaign targeted at voters in the swing county of Clark County in the swing state of Ohio.

In an effort that reflects the international polarization George W. Bush has caused in his first term as president, the Guardian launched Operation Clark County a little over a week ago with the creation of an online "Democratic tool kit" to help concerned British readers feel like they can have their say in the November election. "Where others might see delusions of grandeur, we saw an opportunity for public service – and so, on the following pages, we have assembled a handy set of tools that non-Americans can use to have a real chance of influencing the outcome of the vote," the Guardian's Oliver Burkeman writes cheekily in an explanatory essay.

Editors at the newspaper, who say they dreamed up the idea at a local pub, also assembled an elaborate editorial package that includes more justification of the effort, background information about Clark County (entitled "Football and Mowers"), and sample appeals by three prominent Brits that most Ohioans have likely never heard of (for example, Richard Dawkins, a professor of the public understanding of science at Oxford University). The most crucial aspect of this toolkit, of course, was the web link that allows readers to sign up and receive via e-mail a name and address of a registered independent voter living in Clark County (it comes with a reminder that "charm will be far more effective than hectoring"). The Guardian also plied readers to participate with a contest: four people who are deemed to have written the most persuasive letters will win a trip to the United States to witness the spectacle of an American presidential election up close.

The Guardian reports that about 14,000 names and addresses of voters registered as independent – which the paper accessed through Clark County's elections department by paying a $25 fee – have been handed out to prospective letter-writers around the world. The system gives out an address only once, to make sure that voters don't get more than one letter. But according to some blogs, it's likely that far fewer than 14,000 letters were actually sent – some angry Americans of the Republican persuasion have taken to signing up for a name to prevent Clark County residents from receiving the letters.

Indeed, the Guardian has clearly miscalculated the amount of anger – and the vibrancy of the backlash – that Operation Clark County would engender among the independent-minded voters in Ohio and elsewhere.

"I didn't think it was right to send a letter like that and persuade people to vote for Kerry," asserts Beverly Coale, a retired public school cook whose 85-year-old mother received a letter from England. "I don't think anyone will be persuaded at all. We make up our own minds here. We're not going to listen to anyone who sends us a letter. We think for ourselves and decide who we want and who we'll vote for. We're too smart for that."