A retired Pennsylvania Supreme Court Justice says that she is
“not confident we can get a fair election” in the state come
November.
Justice Sandra Newman, accompanied by Dauphin County District
Attorney Edward Marsico and Pennsylvania Republican State
Chairman Robert Gleason, expressed her concerns at a Harrisburg
press conference this morning. A thick document replete with
photo copies of phony registrations and aerial shots of vacant
lots used as “addresses” for “voters” was handed out to
journalists.
Gleason was even more explicit.
“Between March 23rd and October 1st, various groups, including
ACORN, submitted over 252,595 registrations to the Philadelphia
County Election Board” with 57, 435 rejected for faulty
information. “Most of these registrations were submitted by
ACORN, and rejected due to fake social security numbers,
incorrect dates of birth, clearly fraudulent signatures,
addresses that do not exist, and duplicate registrations. In one
case, a man was registered to vote more than 15 times since the
Primary election.”
“Voter fraud is no longer just a Philadelphia problem,” Gleason
said, with ACORN targeting key counties across the state.
Counties specifically cited included:
* Delaware County: One of four key suburban
counties that surround Philadelphia and are at the heart of the
campaign by the forces of Senator Barack Obama to carry the
state. In one instance, an ACORN employee circulating voter
registration forms in Delaware County was featured on the
Pennsylvania “Megan’s Law” website, described as having been
arrested for “aggravated indecent assault” of a child. Other
ACORN circulators had prior criminal records for forgery and
giving false information to a police officer, among other
charges. Gleason has provided copies of complaints from actual
Delaware County voters who were notified by the local election
board of their “new” registration to vote. One voter wrote that
he “did not complete this form because this information does not
match my info at all. I have been a voter for many years. Did not
recently register to vote.” Said another: “I did not submit any
application for voter registration…While the spelling of my
name and address is correct, the birth date and Drivers License
(sic) number are incorrect.” And another angrily wrote that the
“personal information” on a form submitted in her name “IS NOT
ME.” She added: Please have the county investigate this. I feel
my identity is being compromised.”
* Philadelphia County: The situation in the
state’s largest city is so bad the Philadelphia City Commission,
which supervises the registration of Philadelphia voters, voted
unanimously to “voluntarily” turn over its extensive records to
the United States Attorney’s office for prosecution.
* Dauphin County: Dauphin County (the location
of the state capital) District Attorney Marsico said the
situation was so bad in Harrisburg that one ACORN worker is now
being sought by authorities for submitting more than 100
fraudulent voter registration forms. The charge is 19 counts of
perjury. One Harrisburg lobbyist, a voter for 30 years, had
received notification she had recently filled out a registration
form. The lobbyist went straight to the DA with her complaint.
Marsico said that what was happening with ACORN “affects the
integrity of the process” and that the volume of phony
registrations made him “sure that others are going on” that have
been undetected.
* Allegheny County: Pittsburgh. Here District
Attorney Stephen A. Zappala Jr. and county police Superintendent
Charles Moffatt have just announced, according to the
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, that “they are investigating
and considering charges against ACORN staffers and other voter
registration groups.”
* Centre County: The home of Penn State, which
enrolls more than 40,000 students at its home campus. Justice
Newman said there was a “massive effort” to fraudulently register
students, with efforts aimed at “multiple registrations.”
* Erie County: The county at the northwestern
tip of the state with its largest namesake city, here too
students at local colleges are being targeted in “student
registration drives” designed to register voters 18 and over
“multiples of times.” Student registrants, registered to vote in
their home states, had “pending absentee ballot applications”
submitted so they could vote for president both in Pennsylvania
and elsewhere. The Director of Elections in Erie has reported the
telltale “same handwriting” on applications, according to Newman.
Marsico added that he believed the attempted fraud was being
perpetrated in smaller Pennsylvania counties as well, counties
where the resources to investigate simply don’t exist.
Perhaps most humorously was the role of 21st century technology
in tracking down several attempted frauds. Through the wonder of
Google, aerial shots displayed the following:
* 2418 Curtin Terrace in Philadelphia is — an empty field.
* 3103 S. 24th Street in Philadelphia — ditto.
* 4543 N. 11th Street in Philadelphia — ditto.
And so on. And on again.
Asked whether the Pennsylvania State Democratic Party had come
forward to work with the GOP on the ACORN voter fraud issue,
Gleason tersely shook his head. One source did say that much of
the impetus for the fraud was “an Obama effort,” as opposed to
the Democratic Party as an institution.
All of this brings Pennsylvania into focus as yet another key
battleground state where a serious effort is being made to,
bluntly put, steal the presidency in a move reminiscent of the
attempts made by the 2000 Gore campaign in Florida. Just as
ACORN’s efforts have been directed at key electoral states such
as Florida, Colorado, Missouri, New Mexico Ohio, and Wisconsin,
so within Pennsylvania have its efforts been targeted at key
Pennsylvania counties. For decades the internal electoral math of
the state for Republicans has been to overwhelm the heavy
Democratic vote in Philadelphia and Pittsburgh with strong
showings in the Philadelphia suburbs, Central Pennsylvania, and
western counties outside Pittsburgh.
Thus have ACORN’s fraud efforts — those at least that have been
detected — been directed at Philadelphia (where increasing the
Obama total to counter less enthusiastic support from white
ethnics becomes critical), Delaware County in the pro-GOP
Philadelphia suburbs, Dauphin County (in the heart of Central
Pennsylvania) and Erie in the Northwest.
Is it really possible that the presidency could be stolen for
Obama by virtue of a massive voter fraud here in Pennsylvania?
And elsewhere? ACORN seems to think so. One so-called
“non-partisan” ACORN member, Gleason pointed out, has been
captured on video tape saying the group’s objective was to “beat
McCain down.” Not exactly “non-partisan” sounding, is it?
Newman, the retired Supreme Court Justice, was blunt on the
evidence: “I don’t want a president who does this.”
ACORN clearly does. Makes you wonder: why?
