[5by5]

I suspect the ‘rats don’t have an effective vote stealing squad in MA simply because they’ve never needed one there before.

Once they saw that they were slipping it was too late to get their game going.

[TheBattman]

I have no doubt they tried to steal votes - after all, bussloads of SEIU “Purple People Beater” thugs showed up to “help out”....

[philman_36]

I suspect the ‘rats don’t have an effective vote stealing squad in MA simply because they’ve never needed one there before.
They've got the squads, don't doubt that.
AT's Massachusetts election forecast
Coakley's only chance is that all the organizers flooding the state (3500 from Organizing for America, plus hundreds more from the SEIU and AFL-CIO) literally drag likely Coakley voters to the polls."

Once they saw that they were slipping it was too late to get their game going.
True enough.
Why There Won't Be Exit Polls in Massachusetts
When asked whether "ACORN will try to steal the election for Martha Coakley," a surprising 25% of those surveyed in Massachusetts said "yes." A total of 38% said "no," and another 37% weren't sure. Lest you think concern about ACORN was limited to Republicans, one out of six Democrats thought ACORN would attempt electoral hanky-panky. One out of four African-Americans expressed the same concern, along with the same number of voters who called themselves moderates.
An aside to your "too late" considerations...
Applications for absentee ballots had to be submitted by last Friday, providing little opportunity for those with ill intent to organize such an effort once they realized the race had tightened up.
Snip...The Brown surge came so suddenly there was no time to plan anything devious beyond the usual negative commercials -- which in this race ran everywhere, including, for the first time in anyone's memory, The Weather Channel.

[Moose Burger]

That’s half of the story. The other half was assuming that they had one; being extra careful to detect vote stealing did its job.