On MSNBC this morning, former governor of Vermont and DNC chairman Howard Dean affirmed his belief that, when it comes to Obama in Ohio, there’s simply no way the man could lose given the state of the [early] vote and the polls — which seems odd, because the last time I checked, the early vote is looking pretty fair for Romney and the polls have the candidates in a dead heat in Ohio.

There’s some reports in Ohio… of voting machines that aren’t working in Toledo and Dayton and Cleveland and some reports of voter harassment in the Philadelphia area. So I think, actually, the president’s going to win this if we have a fair election. … Yep, it’s a problem. … Given the vote and the leading of the polls in Ohio, the only way he can lose is if people are prevented from casting their ballots, either by voting machines that aren’t functioning right or other forms of harassment.

Firstly, I wonder if he actually meant to conclude quite what he did — voting problems are the only possible way that Romney could win Ohio? Really? Also, there have been reports of some sketchy election goings-on in Pennsylvania, but they’re of the sort that would be favorable to a Barack Obama victory. And secondly, I think we can all agree that voting-machine malfunctions (whether accidental or intentional), voter intimidation, and other forms of voter suppression are indeed real things that exist in the physical world, and are absolutely unacceptable in any shape, manner, or form. But if we can all agree that real efforts at voter suppression exist, why can’t Democrats seem to accept the notion that voter fraud is a real thing, too? If they can acknowledge that it’s possible people might use certain methods of cheating to influence election outcomes, why aren’t all methods of cheating treated with equal scrutiny?

For example, here’s some news fresh out of California, via NBC:

An NBC Bay Area Investigation has uncovered thousands of California voters who remain on the voter rolls despite having  died several years ago.

That discovery prompted several state and Bay Area election officials to re-examine their records, after our investigation brought this issue to light. …

A closer look at the data revealed that some of the dead people were not only registered, but somehow, even voted, several years after their death. Sometimes, clerks say the mistake can purely be a clerical error, such as a misplaced signature or an outdated registration list that hadn’t been purged. Other times, though, the voting turns out to be fraud, clerks say, where family members vote on their dead relatives’ behalf.

Yes, but voter-ID laws are baseless, racist attempts to disenfranchise minorities and the poor. Riiiight.