Will "experimental" election software patches affect the Ohio vote

[sofa king]

110. There is another possibility.

So it's the eve of the election and a new patch is frantically distributed in the most important tossup state, Ohio. Nothing new here, except for one BIG thing.

Consider the fact that in recent days the Ohio polls have moved outside of the margin of error in favor of President Obama. He's now five points ahead and his lead is growing, while the MOE of the polls is usually around 2.5 to 4 percent.

That means that the election in Ohio is now no longer close enough to steal with any degree of plausibility. A divergence in favor of Romney would be easily identified and investigated.

So... what if the voting machines in Ohio were already programmed to throw the election to Romney, and now panicked election thieves are desperately trying to undo the fix so that they don't spend years in pound-me-in-the-ass prison?

Last night, before I saw this discussion, I opined that the same thing may be about to happen in Virginia, as the President's growing support is about to pull him out of a statistical tie by the end of the week. I suggested that if that were the case we might see a rash of emergency updates precisely like these going out in Ohio as election workers in fear for their freedom suddenly attempt to reverse machines that are already programmed to steal it for Romney. The truly damning circumstantial evidence would be emergency updates across multiple makes of voting machines--Virginia uses many different kinds.

As I think about it more, I am beginning to wonder if two different and contradictory forms of election manipulation are at work, and now threaten to expose the entire operation.

Some time back I wrote here that I expected to see Romney's imaginary "surge" evaporate about a month out from the elections. I felt that the media and pollsters have a professional and financial interest in keeping the race tighter than it actually is. A closer race increases viewers and readers, attracts more money and sells more ad time and space. Those with an actual partisan interest know that fake momentum can, over time, build actual momentum as run-with-the-herd types switch allegiance to the fellow who looks like he is going to win.

But the pollsters have a second, much larger interest in calling it straight in the all-important day-before polls. If their final calls are off, the pollster stands to lose out on the next general election revenue stream--who pays attention to Zogby anymore after he famously blew the call in '04? But everyone reads Nate Silver's blog, because he nailed it in '08.

So, I concluded, the pollsters were going to "walk back" the polls to the true numbers (in favor of the President) so that they could make an accurate call just before the election--exactly as Rasmussen did from October to November in '08.

But that didn't happen this time.

So... what if the voting machine thieves were taking the pollsters at their word, and now they are seeing the polls suddenly shift and they are realizing that someone else's election manipulation threatens to expose their own work? They would frantically scramble to undo the fix, is what I think they would do, and it looks to me as if that is just what they are doing in Ohio.

But keep in mind that I was wrong about my first guess, and there is no reason to think that this second one is any more credible than the first. I'll say this for sure: Mitt Romney does not give a shit if his underlings are caught stealing the election, as long as he gets in.