Objective polling and statistical analysis gives the chance of Obama victory in today’s presidential election at 98.9%. (The projection is based on running 10,000 election simulations.) If McCain scores an upset win, it will likely be because of voter-fraud fraud. That is to say, attempts to clear voter rolls, challenges at polling places, and the like, including the 2002 Help America Vote Act.

From 2002 to 2005, according to Hendrik Hertzberg, only 20 people in the entire US were found guilty of voting while ineligible. Only five were convicted of voting more than once. By contrast, tens of thousands of voters in at least six swing states have been removed from voter rolls or blocked from voting in ways that violate federal law, according to the New York Times. While John McCain is spreading divisive and dangerous lies about ACORN “perpetrating one of the greatest voter frauds in voter history in this country, maybe destroying the fabric of democracy,” political leaders, many in his party, have been putting in place dangerously insecure and unreliable electronic voting machines (and sometimes distributing them in inequitable ways so that urban, lower-income voters are more likely to be prevented from voting).

The voter-fraud hysteria is not backed up by facts. The systematic disenfranchisement, in some cases clearly intentional, is. If John McCain wins tonight, it is doubtful that it will be an honorable victory.