The most important point is that there isn't just one way to steal an election. There are many techniques that can be employed to lose votes, and collectively they add up:

In all, 5,901,814 legitimate votes and voters were tossed out of the count in 2008. In 2012 it will be worse. Way worse.

Over 22 million names were purged from voter rolls in the last two years. Those figures are from the US Election Assistance Commission - hidden in plain sight.

In addition, 26 million votes will be mailed in but ONE IN 14 WILL BE TOSSED OUT. Losing 2 million mailed-in votes could make the difference in the 2012 election.

If not, there's a backup plan of how the 2012 election can be stolen in 3 easy steps:

1. By purging names from voter rolls around the country, make sure the electoral college process comes down to a single state.

In 2000, that state was Florida; in 2004, that state was Ohio.

In 2012 the state likely to determine the election is Ohio.

2. Buy controlling stake in the company that makes the electronic voting machines in that state.

The Romney family owns controlling interest in the Hart voting machine company, used in Ohio elections.

These machines cannot be monitored by the public.

3. Switching a few hundred thousand votes in Ohio might not work, in which case keep having horrendous fights and litigation so that the election result depends on the Supreme Court intervening.

The Bush v Gore decision of 2000 has now established a precedent.

Nevermind that this presidential race should never have been this close.

Now that the 2012 presidential race is close, what are we going to do about it?

I have a permanent absentee ballot. They can't purge my voter registration unless they pry it from my cold, dead hands!

I have a permanent absentee ballot, too.

As a personal anecdote, I was purged from the voter rolls in July of this year for no reason despite that.

When I called to ask why I had not received my mail ballot, I discovered that someone had called and invalidated my voter registration. I repeat:

You can be voter purged with just a phone call.

I asked who had done this, but they did not keep a record of it!

I had to spend time to re-instate my right to vote; if I had not done it in time, I would not be allowed to vote in this election.

Just being dropped from the voter rolls happens. We have to fight for our right to vote.

That's fairly disturbing. Have you changed addresses? Used a PO Box? Not responded to jury duty? (Commit any felonies ;-)

No, no, no, and no.

Re-instating my voting credentials wasn't hard.

The hardest part was contacting them when my ballot had not arrived two weeks before the election.

If you haven't gotten your ballot you HAVE to investigate. Knowing to do that is key.

Otherwise you risk not being eligible to vote in time for the election.

I contacted the commissioner of voter registration in your area. He says that you weren't the real Adam Rifkin, so you were removed.

BTW, I saw Expendables 2 yesterday. Really fun movie. So many cliches, so little time.

It's kind of scary that anyone COULD remove you from the valid voter ranks.

It's easy to get reinstated if you remember that you didn't get your ballot and you have the time to fix things. In our busy lives, not everyone has that time.

The nice thing about Expendables 2 is that you don't have to think hard about it. :)

It's easy to feel frightened and powerless about how this election will play out.

Living in a "non battleground state" I've already been conditioned to believe my vote doesn't really matter to the outcome.

Now I just have to hope the battleground states do their part to keep this election fair.

Disgusting state of affairs.

It's potentially a terrible thing. Lets see what actually happens, JJ.

It's sad, but having lived in California and Massachusetts my entire life, I've never experienced the joys of being in a battleground state: Endless negative advertising, constant robocalling, door-to-door get out the vote that makes Jehovah's Witnesses and Mormon missionaries look meek.

It can be a lot more entertaining than that, Chris.

But usually it's not more entertaining than that. Campaigns lack creativity.

Lovely story... Apparently the solution to rank partisanship is more rank partisanship. I've never understood the left wing obsession with conspiracies, particularly the degree of righteous indignation coupled with the willful disregard of the culpability of their own 'side'.

Of course, conspiracy theories are part of the control mechanism, serving the dual purpose of hoisting the psychologically unhinged upon their own petard and giving their followers their needed dopamine release from the sense of both powerlessness and 'forbidden' knowledge.

I'm not debating any of the specific assertions he's making... I've seen ALOT of shady shit in politics, much of what he's saying is probably true.... but it can't be fixed when presented in this manner... and it's not meant to!

I love a good conspiracy theory, but the important thing here is that it's not a conspiracy. These are well known techniques o suppress certain voting blocs. The only question is how well they'll work.

As this article http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/18/opinion/blow-dark-road-to-the-white-house.html points out, if unlikely voters were to actually vote, Obama would crush Romney

If we had greater voter participation, less gerrymandering and no electoral college, both parties (but especially the GOP) would move towards the center of the political spectrum, which is ultimately how we're going to make progress on the problems facing the country.

I'm not questioning the subject of the article. Both parties do fantastically shady shit every day. What I object to is the article's flagrantly partisan tone, and that tone is NOT intended to draw sunshine to the issue, but to demagogue. If you want a person or group to change bad behavior, you must draw attention to the behavior and demand it's correction while allowing the guilty party the ability to make the change and still save face.

Adding categorical moral indignance will cause retrenchment and lead to dismissiveness and derision, which then leads to a sense of powerlessness on the part of the accusatory parties, and subsequently deeper social cohesion among them... and that's the entire purpose of this article and other forms of conspiratorialism... emotional manipulation.

The thesis of this article is that Republicans are evil, all of them, from prince-of-darkness hack Karl Rove to wacky-cracker Todd Akin to essentially-a-liberal Scott Brown. They're so evil, that even some Democrats are tempted and fall for their wicked schemes! Ignore the man behind the curtain! Buck up and pull that party line lever! You're our only hope Obama-wan Kenobi!

It's disgusting and among the most cynical forms of emotional manipulation in existence. Because I'll tell ya, the pols who scream the loudest about corruption are ALWAYS busting down the door to take over the operation as soon as they possibly can.

There are no clean hands in politics.

Jason, I think you've done a good job of describing how the Dems are using every weapon they can -- and yes, emotional influence is a big one -- to try to swing things in their direction.

The Dems seem to have fully embraced the belief that unless they fight as hard and dirty as they can, they cannot win.

What's fascinating in all of this is how completely split down the middle the country is. Is it because each side moves toward the other until I can amass 50.1% of the popular vote?

In years like this when electoral college matters a lot more than popular vote for determining President, the tactics get dirtier, on both sides.

Of course they embraced that belief... they never faltered in that belief in all the decades and centuries the Democrat party has been in existence... the same with the GOP... the same with the German CDU, or Social Democrats, or Japan's LDP, or the Canadian Liberals, or Putin's United Russia party.. and EVERY other political party on this blue marble.

Lenin said it best: Politics is war by other means.

What I'm trying to convince you all of is to avoid political tribalism, or at least look at it with cynical amusement.

And I say this as a former GOP operative, and I understand the difficulty of resisting the pull of your 'team'.. You want to root for your own side, good or bad. But our politics are only going to get continually worse until enough people reject labels and this insane form of identity politics.