Breaking….Booth changing Obama votes into Romney votes

GOP complaint moves Judge to call inspectors in

A Pennsylvania electronic voting machine has been taken out of service after being captured on video changing a vote for President Obama into one for Mitt Romney. And a Philadelphia judge has issued a court order allowing all certified minority inspectors into polling places following GOP complaints about barring tactics.

Although Ohio federal judge Gregory Frost yesterday rejected claims raised in a Green Party lawsuit that new software used in voting equipment in some Ohio counties could cause ballots to be altered, the luckless guy on the bench looks like he is being proved wrong bigtime.

In what appears to have the makings of a weird turn-up at the last minute, there was considerable US media confusion late afternoon today  in the US when a Youtube video showed a President Obama preference changing into a vote for Governor Romney. And in the last hour, NBC News has confirmed that the Republicans say some machines have been observed doing the opposite. In addition, the GOP is alleging that dozens of legally credentialled minority voting inspectors were removed from polling places in Philadelphia during the morning.

Tasha Jamerson, the spokeswoman for District Attorney Seth Williams, says a local judge issued a court order allowing all minority voting inspectors into polling places. State GOP Chairman Rob Gleason says 75 Republican election workers were prohibited from accessing polling places in the heavily Democratic city, prompting the party to seek the court order.

And there’s more.

 Some voters in Florida’s Pinellas County received automatic calls this morning from the local supervisor of elections mistakenly informing them that they had until 7 p.m. Wednesday to cast their votes. (The polls close at 7 p.m. local US times Tuesday).

I’ve been watching US elections since 1960, and this is the first time I can remember so many reports of irregularities.

In the market so far US time, the price of gold rose 2%  in NYSE  trading before 1 pm. It has now levelled off.

Whatever the result turns out to be – and The Slog remains convinced that Obama is going to win – commentators are going to interrogate this stuff until forever.