CNN had an article up noting that 6 out of 10 people figure that the election won't be decided on election day. I can almost guarantee that'll be true, sorry to say. In the past two weeks three stories have broken in the state that make it look inevitable that whatever happens, the margin of victory in Pennsylvania won't be outside the margin of error. To wit:

1. Concern that moving polling locations in Philadelphia will constitute disenfranchisement of minority voters (Oh, those clever, evil Republicans.)
2. Concern that kicking Nader off the ballot meant a delay in sending out absentee ballots, constituting a disenfranchisement of overseas voters, including armed forces. (Oh, those clever, evil Democrats.)
3. Concern that because the voter rolls in Allegheny County aren't cleaned of the deceased, they'll be a massive outpouring of zombie voters, disenfranchising the living. (Oh, those clever, Evil Dead.)

The third one concerns me most directly, mostly because, I'm living in the county, and the most recent report (Channel 4's investigative report from 10/17) indicated of 400 names on the voter rolls of voters over 90, around 200 of them had died, and 7 of them had voted at least once since death. So if we figure 3% of the dead in the second most populous county, in "The Fixin' to Die State", are voting illegally, the state's margin of error goes up a lot. I'm also ticked off because this is the one of the three up above that was preventable in advance, because the evidence was there. The other two are opposed based on the proposition that wrongdoing will result, but we don't know. Here we have the proof, and nothing has been put in place to prevent a repeat. More to the point, I see no way that observers could help this one, if the dead or their minions are even moderately clever.

So, here in George Romero country, the dead have risen. Just frickin' great. Watch us find out protecting us from the dead was the job of the prothonotary. Wouldn't that be embarassing.