New PA Voting Scandal

This would be the same PA where Republicans had to fight just to get a ten day extension for absentee ballots. Rendell went to court to fight Nader's being on the ballot. That delay caused the late mailing of absentee ballots, which would particularly impact military voters serving overseas. Also of note, Rendell had the exact opposite position during the primaries when it was to democrat advantage to extend the guidelines. And now this.

It is unbelieveable that PA would accept a party that will try to disenfranchise our military voters, then turn around and illegally go out of their way to recruit confined prisoners. This is disgusting. Earlier in the year Rendell's very office sent a memo to prisons highlighting their desire to maximize the "prison" vote. I wonder what Kerry promised Rendell for this. He is absolutely a blind partisan, but there must have been a DC slot in his future for him to so damage his PA political future this way.

"We have every reason to believe that there has been gross abuse of the absentee ballot process in the prison system," said U.S. Rep. Curt Weldon, R-7, of Thornbury.

While waiting to begin a press conference outside Philadelphia’s Curran-Fromhold Correctional Facility Friday afternoon, Weldon said he watched the crime he was prepared to speak about unfold before his eyes.

"Four girls walked out from the prison who had clearly been doing some kind of election work," he said. "When (state Rep.) Steve Barrar and I went up and asked them what they were doing, they said ‘We can’t tell you.’

"We told them who we were and asked if they had collected any absentee ballots while they were in the prison. Sure enough, one of them pulled out a ballot and showed it to us. It was the most amazing thing I’ve ever seen -- just the type of illegal, third-party handling of ballots that we had been tipped off about. And there were TV crews there filming the whole thing."

Weldon said former U.S. Attorney Robert E.J. Curran would be filing a suit in federal court challenging the legitimacy of all absentee ballots that originated from Pennsylvania prisons.

Barrar received a call from a prison source earlier this week who told him canvassers were entering Curran-Fromhold and helping prisoners with their ballots. "I can’t believe that people are allowed to just come and go from the prison with absentee ballots in their hands," said Barrar, R-160, of Upper Chichester. "There was absolutely no oversight."

Weldon and Barrar claimed the girls coming out of the prison were in no mood to chat. "The one girl tried to conceal the ballot by putting it under her jacket as we approached them," Barrar said. "After a few questions they ran away. Clearly, there was some criminal intention on their part ..If the prison tries to say this is an isolated case, it’s bull. There has to be an investigation."

A spokesman for the prison system, reached after the press conference, did not offer a comment on the incident.

State law prohibits incarcerated, convicted felons from submitting an absentee ballot. Pretrial detainees and misdemeanants are eligible to vote by absentee ballot.

According to Weldon, 20 prisoners at the Delaware County prison registered to vote, and just two mailed in their absentee ballots.

Comments

[Ron]

I understand partisanship to some degree. What I can't understand is partisanship that is obviously aimed at destroying our democracy and the principles of free and fair elections. I'm sure there are zealots on the right who speak and spew their venom as well as the left, but the net result is far fewer neocons are involved than the overwhelming fascist tactics of the left. Are we too timid in going after blatant banana republic tactics? Or are we passively ignoring the real threat here: win at any cost?

Rendell is a prime example of the self-serving individualism pervasive in liberal politics. This is a narcissistic trait the prime member on the democratic presidential ticket has pandered to his drooling masses. Registering the dead, the illegal, the disenfranchised? I think more emphasis on "enough is enough" is long overdue.

[Daisy]

Thanks for bring this out ... also, check out my blog re: the OBL tape and spread the word.