Things could get pretty hairy on election day due to the state's new Voter ID law. Pittsburgh is bracing for long lines. Poll watchers from both parties will likely be on hand in big districts, stepping up the anxiety. And what if some Democratic poll workers refuse to follow the new GOP-approved rules?

The state has already warned they could be prosecuted, according to Daniel Denvir at Philadelphia City Paper:

The voter ID law does not set out any new and specific penalties for non-compliance. Violators could, however, be charged under five catch-all state elections code provisions, according to information provided by the Secretary of State to the Philadelphia City Commissioners and obtained by City Paper. That includes two felonies carrying prison sentences of up to seven years. Anyone convicted of such a crime would also be barred from voting for four years.

Mitt Romney forces haven't been advertising in Pa in weeks, but that changed today with a postive spot from GOP SuperPAC Restore Our Future, going over his work on the 2002 Salt Lake City Olympics and starring skater Kristi Yamaguchi. It's part of a $7.2 million ad buy in Pa and 10 other battleground states.

Poll expert Nate Silver at the NYT writes today that Romney should fight for Pa, as it's possible it could help him win the presidency if he loses Ohio:

It’s plausible, for instance, that Mr. Romney’s opposition to the auto bailout will be more of a disadvantage in Ohio than in Pennsylvania, since the former state relies more on auto industry jobs. Meanwhile, the new voter identification laws in Pennsylvania could give Mr. Romney an extra point or two there, if they’re upheld by the courts.

Mr. Romney will be in fairly bad shape if he loses Ohio. But conditional upon that, Pennsylvania might be his least-bad alternative to pick up the requisite number of electoral votes. Wisconsin and Michigan, for instance, might seem like compelling alternatives — but they are typically a bit more Democratic-leaning that Pennsylvania, and Mr. Romney’s polls have been no better in them on the whole.

If Mr. Romney’s standing rebounds in Ohio — or if the polls suggesting he’s in trouble there are wrong begin with — he could rely on a Keystone-Buckeye parlay. For instance, if Mr. Romney won both Ohio and Pennsylvania, that might suffice for him to win the election despite being swept in the competitive states of the Mountain West, like Colorado and Nevada.

This post by Philadelphia radio reporter (and former Daily News columnist) Dave Davies at WHYY is a week old now but worth clipping for those of us on the other side of the state following Voter ID matters. State Republicans from Tom Corbett to GOP chief Rob Gleason have been citing a report on Philly voting inaccuracies by city commissioner Al Schmidt to bolster their case for the new law, but Davies argues the problems are few, and largely due to clerical errors. And most wouldn't be solved by voters showing IDs on election day.

In part:

Schmidt's report does identify some cases of apparently illegal conduct: one woman who appears to have voted twice in two different voting divisions; one case of voter impersonation (but not in the 2012 primary, which the report focused on); 23 cases of un-registered people convincing poll workers to let them sign "voter slips" in violation of procedure and cast machine votes; one polling place in the Northeast where six more votes were tallied on machines than voters who signed in (curiously, the extra votes were all cast in the Republican primary in a predominantly Democratic division); and seven non-US citizens voting over the last 10 years.

These are small numbers, compared to about 170,000 votes cast in the primary.

But Gleason and others say this may be just the tip of the iceberg. Most of these findings came from a small sample of voting divisions. Expand it across all 1,687 divisions, they say, and you may have a mountain of fraud.

The problem with that argument is that the sample in the report wasn't randomly selected. The 14 divisions examined were those flagged in a comparison between state and city records (more on that in a moment).

So while it's possible there are great pools of slime in the rest of the voting divisions, it may also be that we've seen the worst here, and it's far from hundreds of cases of fraud.

In one category of irregularity, the use of "voter slips" to cast machine ballots, the report looked at all of them citywide, because they're easy to examine. So the 23 unregistered voters who slipped through that crack represent the citywide total – again, 23 out of roughly 170,000 votes cast.

Photo: Al Schmidt. Emma Lee/for NewsWorks

Karen Langley and Clara Ritger caught up with Rob Portman after the possible VP candidate made the Romney camp's pitch to Pa voters yesterday in Lancaster:

Later, in a telephone interview, Mr. Portman said he believes Mr. Romney has a "very good" chance of winning Ohio and Pennsylvania.

"I think that there are a lot of people who have not yet decided, who are in the middle, who tend to make the difference in our states, who are looking for something new," he said.

"They do want to know enough about Governor Romney's background and his experience and, most importantly, his policies to be able to visualize a new and better way, and I think that's the challenge of the campaign."

Asked if the years remaining in his Senate term would make him hesitate to accept an offer to share the ticket, Mr. Portman said he expects to remain in his job.

"I really view myself as staying in the Senate," Mr. Portman said. "I'm just assuming I'm going to stay where I am, stay in the Senate, continue to represent Ohio. I got elected in 2010 for a six-year term. I look at it as an opportunity to serve in an important job. I didn't run to run for something else."

The Republican's campaign will announce the VP choice to supporters via smartphone app. A story at HuffPost wonders whether an announcement will be delayed by the Olympic appearances by Ann Romney's horse, which is due to compete Thursday and Friday.

The Obama campaign too has an app -- it's for grassroots supporters to find campaign events near them, volunteer and find out about the Democrat's policies.