Tabella has this piece about the late mailing of military ballots in Vermont.  Focus on two important facts from the story.  First, election officials admit they screwed up.  Second, they call the attention to their screw up a “political show.”

This same pattern seems to be repeating around the country.  The same thing is happening in Ohio where derelict election officials had to clear off deadwood voters from the rolls, yet at the same time criticized the groups that brought attention to the deadwood.  In fact, it is even worse than that.  Ohio electoral boards could have summarily dismissed bad challenges, but instead conjured up the voters for genuine political theatre, and to push a point that the people making the challenges shouldn’t be doing so.  This was designed to deter further challenges to their derelict election administration. 

So when the Romney campaign points out that Vermont failed to comply with federal law requiring our servicemembers to receive timely ballots, or Ohio VIP points out dead and ineligible voters on the rolls in violation of federal law, the wrongdoers have the audacity of calling it a “political show!” 

Pay attention.  This pattern is likely to repeat in the coming weeks.  Citizens or campaigns bring attention to derelict election officials, the derelict election officials quietly fix the problem, while simultaneously accusing the accusers of engaging in political theatre.