But the thuggish actions of shadowy Repug proxy groups pales in comparison to the “official” attempts to disenfranchise potential Democratic voters in swing states on the part of well-placed Repug operatives:

States have been trying to follow the Help America Vote Act of 2002 by removing the names of voters who should no longer be listed. But for every voter added to the rolls in the past two months in some states, election officials have removed two, a review of the records shows.

The newspaper said it identified apparent problems in Colorado, Indiana, Ohio, Michigan, Nevada and North Carolina. It says some states are improperly using Social Security data to verify new voters’ registration applications, and others may have broken rules that govern removing voters from the rolls within 90 days of a federal election.

It has proved surpisingly easy for the Repugs to manipulate a few thousand votes in a few counties in a few swing states in the previous two elections without causing riots. The bottom line is that Obama needs to do what Kerry and Gore were unable to do in ’04 and ’00 – win by a margin large enough in the swing states to prevent the Repugs from winning by theft, say 10%.

So keep up the hard work, ignore the pundits already calling an Obama victory – winning the swing states isn’t enough, he needs to win big in those states.