Even More Voting Irregularities in PA

First we have double voting. Good job ACORN.

Then we have this from redstate where people are being told that their polling location has been changed:

RS has received a tip that an unknown number of voters in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania are receiving phone calls informing them — falsely — that their voting stations have been relocated. At least 3 of the voters who received such calls determined that the information was false, and informed officials of this illegal attempt to prevent them from casting their ballots. The three specific cases that have come to our attention involve different precincts in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania — which may be the most important one in the nation for John McCain’s presidential bid.

In at least one case, the voter captured the phone number from which the call originated and later called back. The male who answered confirmed that he had placed the call. According to reversemobilephones.org, the number is assigned to a resident of Philadelphia.

This activity is a violation of the Pennsylvania Election Code, and the Lancaster County Board of Elections has been asked to investigate this activity — which may be more widespread — and refer the findings for possible prosecution.

I expect to have audio on this matter, and will update this story later with more.

Voter Fraud in Philadelphia Already

It appears that some voting machines Philadelphia already had votes cast for Obama before the polls even opened. Amanda Carpenter of Town Hall notes:

I’m getting a tip that voting machines in Philadelphia were showing votes for Obama BEFORE the polls even opened

In the run-up to Election Day there was a nasty, partisan scuffle with the Board of Elections. Four GOP workers were removed by a liberal judge because they were “the minority party.” They purged the Republicans and deprived them of the ability to supervise the voting process.

The same thing happened in the City of Brotherly Love in 2004. About 2,000 votes were preemptively tallied for Kerry. Unrelated, but equally scary, there were reports of someone using a gun to intimidate poll workers there that year as well.

More from Redstate:

I went to Philadelphia last week as part of the ‘Lawyers for Bush’ campaign. We went to the ‘battleground state’ of Pennsylvania and were caught in a battle of physical force. We had heard about the political ‘ground war,’ but instead found ourselves in the middle of an outright war. At the end of the day, I was cornered in a parking lot by roughly 10 large men, whom the police later identified as ‘union goons.’ After trying to tip over the minivan I was sharing with another attorney, punching it relentlessly, breaking parts off and failing to drag us out, they chased us in and out of the dense urban traffic in their high-powered SUVs. Only after a frantic 911 call and a police roadblock were our assailants apprehended. Even then, a growing mob surrounded us and we had to be secreted out of town to safety by a police escort. Our experience was not unique; several other ‘Lawyers for Bush’ teams in Philadelphia reported similar violence.

Update: Amanda adds:

GOP Election Board members have been tossed out of polling stations in more than half a dozen polling stations in Philadelphia because of their party status.

A liberal judge previously ruled that court-appointed poll watchers could be NOT removed from their boards by an on-site election judge, but that is exactly what is happening.

It is the duty of election board workers to monitor and guard the integrity of the voting process.

Denying access to the minority (in this case Republican) poll watchers and inspectors is a violation of Pennsylvania state law. Those who violate the law can be punished with a misdemeanor and subjected to a fine of $1,000 and sent to prison between one month and two years.

Those on site as describing it as “pandemonium” and there may be video coming of the chaos.

Some of the precincts where Republicans have been removed are: the 44th Ward, 12th and 13th divisions; 6th Ward, 12th division; 32nd Ward, Division 28.

“Election board officials guard the legitimacy of the election process and the idea that Republicans are being intimidated and banned for partisan purposes does not allow for an honest and open election process,” said McCain-Palin spokesman Ben Porritt in a statement to Townhall.

The City of Brotherly Love was roiled in controversy during the 2004 election because of rigged voting machines that showed nearly 2,000 votes for Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry before the polls had opened. A man also used a gun to intimidate poll workers at Ward 30, division 11 in 2004.

UPDATE

MM and Hotair have a video of Black Panther Militants “guarding” the polling stations in Philadelphia.  City of Brotherly Love?

Lt. Russell and Murtha Appear Tied Going in Today

If we lose the big one, this is going to be one of our few consolences. Mark Hemingway reports from the Corner:

• The Russell campaign’s internal polls had them tied(!) at 46 percent Saturday night.
• Murtha has raised a fortune in the last days of the campaign now that he’s in trouble — but it’s largely for naught. All of the air time in the district in Western Pennsylvania is already bought up, so he can’t spend the money on ads.
• Because they can’t spend money on ads, they’re hitting the robocalls against Russell pretty hard. Many of the calls are below the belt and untrue, though obviously they have no evidence the Murtha campaign is behind the more unsavory calls. The scurrilous calls are accusing Russell, a retired Army Lt. Col. and Iraq war veteran, of being forced into early retirement from the military because of some unspecified scandal.
• The Murtha campaign is hitting the carpetbagger theme pretty hard, though it’s not quite fair. Russell moved to the district after he retired from the army, and during his 28 year career in the military his family had no real permanent home. He’d pretty much be a carpet bagger no matter where he went. Nonetheless, the Russell campaign thinks that if anything has hurt them it’s this. In fact, when Murtha angrily denounced Russell as a “G-d damn carpetbagger” he may have looked like a crazy old man from the outside, it actually may have actually may have resonated somewhat as righteous indignation in the district.  
• Bill Clinton was in the district for a Murtha rally Monday. They don’t think it had much of an impact, Clinton only drew a crowd of 1,400. In contrast, Palin’s rally in the district a few weeks ago drew over 5,000.
• My source says the Russell campaign can’t keep signs, stickers t-shirts in stock and it “just feels like winning campaign.” The bottom line is that if a 34 year incumbent can’t break 50 percent 72 hours before election day, that’s really bad news for him.
• Finally, he says that Russell is running ahead of McCain in the state. Murtha’s district is the home of the country’s largest coal reserves and the Russell campaign has been pushing the heck out of Obama’s coal comments. If McCain somehow wins Pennsylvania by a narrow margin, Russell’s impact in Western Pennsylvania might end up being a very significant contributing factor.

Opinion Out of Pittsburgh

Ralph R. Reiland writing for the Pittsburgh Tribune:

I interviewed two plumbing company owners over the weekend about Barack Obama’s economic proposals for small business.

One has 15 employees and 12 trucks. The other has 52 employees and 34 trucks. They’re Joe the Plumber, writ large.

Both owners had the same reaction to Obama’s proposed new taxes and mandates. To not have their bottom lines reduced by government fiat, both said they’d be forced to lay off employees.

Specifically, here’s what the owner of the larger firm said regarding six of Obama’s key proposals for the small-business sector: The average wage at his company, figuring the 52 paychecks of his office staff, installers and service workers, is $31,200, $15 an hour.

First, “Barack Obama and Joe Biden will require that employers provide seven paid sick days per year,” states the Obama campaign’s Web site. “I give three paid sick days,” explained the business owner. His extra cost for this one new regulation would be $24,960 (4 extra days, 52 employees, at an average of $120 per day). “That’s one of the women in the office,” he said. “I can make up that cost by letting one of the office people go.”

Second, Obama states that employers will be required to pay 100 percent of the cost of health insurance premiums for 100 percent of their employees or face a tax penalty. “I pay 75 percent of their coverage,” explained the owner. “The family policy is about $11,000. For single guys, it’s about $5,000.” At an average annual cost of $7,000 per policy, his additional cost for 52 employees to cover the 25 percent of the premiums that he currently doesn’t pay is $91,000. “That’s the price of three installers,” he said. “Just to stay even with where I am, I’d have to fire three more people or raise some prices and fire two.”

The result is more unemployment or more inflation, or both.

Third, with the estate tax, Obama is calling for a top tax rate of 45 percent on estates valued above $3.5 million, producing an estimated “death tax” of $675,000 on an estate of $5 million. “You’re kidding,” he said. “They took half my income on the way up and now they want another half when I die?” He estimated that his business is already valued at more than $3 million, in addition to the value of his home and investments. “Why,” he asked, “would I want to grow to 100 employees? What’ll stop them from changing it to 75 percent?”

The cost in jobs that will never be created in the U.S. economy because of this single disincentive to growth? Incalculable.

Fourth, Obama’s economic plan calls for a hike in the minimum wage to $9.50 an hour within three years. The business owner’s reaction? “That’s bad for two reasons. I don’t have anyone at minimum, but raise the bottom by $3 and a guy making $15 wants $18. Plus it’s bad for productivity when people think their pay raises are coming from government instead of from their own individual effort.”

Fifth, saying he’ll “play offense for organized labor,” Obama is proposing that workers should be denied the right to a private ballot at work in deciding whether to unionize. “That’ll never be,” said the plumbing entrepreneur. “I’m in business because I’m independent, not to take orders from a grievance chairman. I’d shut down.”

Sixth, the increase in taxes on this small business owner from Obama’s proposed hike in the income tax rate from 36% to 39.8% on incomes above $200,000 and the proposed increase in Social Security taxes comes to $32,000 per year. “That’s another employee,” he said, referring to the termination of another installer in order to just stay even.

And the jobless plumbers? They can be re-socialized to work for ACORN.

As Obama explained in July: “We cannot continue to rely on our military to achieve the national security objectives we’ve set. We’ve got to have a civilian national security force that’s just as powerful, just as strong, just as well funded.”

As “well funded” as our Armed Forces personnel comes to $119 billion per year in paychecks for “community activism,” a lot of money for registering dead voters, caulking windows, making sure that all the guns are locked up at the municipal buildings, and monitoring the airways to make sure that conservatives don’t have too many talk shows.

 

Bottom line, Obama’s economic plan doesn’t hold water. Neither will our pipes.

The Outbreak of “Anonymous” Obama Blogger Defectors

Alright, I need to call shenanigans on this right now.  For the past few days, “anonymous” Obama bloggers have been posting as to how close the race really is and have indicated that Florida and several other swing states are not in play and are definitely going to McCain.  Hannity just cited Anonymous14 from redstate, which unfortunately, is having some serious server problems right now.  Our good friends at Hillbuzz (one of the finest sites on the Internet – congrats on being cited by Rush!) have an anonymous blogger named Sarah P who felt the need to come clean on Obama’s dirty Internet tricks:

Sprinkle in mass vote confusion and it becomes bewildering. Most people lose patience and just give up on their support of a candidate and decide to just block out tv, news, websites, etc.

This surprisingly has had a huge suppressing movement and vote turnout issues.

Next, we infiltrate all the blogs and all the youtube videos and overwhelm the voting, the comments, etc. All to continue this appearance of overwhelming world support.

People makes posts to the effect that the world has “gone mad”

Thats the intention. To make you feel stressed and crazy and feel like the world is ending.

We have also had quite a hand in skewing many many polls, some we couldn’t control as much as we would have liked. But many we have spoiled over. Just enough to make real clear politics look scarey to a mccain supporter. Its worked, alough the goal was to appear 13-15 points ahead.

see, the results have been working. People tend to support a winner, go with the flow, become “sheeple”

The polls are roughly 3-5 points in favor of Barack. Thats due to our inflation of the polls and pulling in the sheeple.

Our donors, are the same people who finance the MSM. Their interests are tied, Barack then tends to come across as teflon. Nothing sticks. And trust, there were meetings with Fox news. The goal was to blunt them as much as possible. Watch Bill Oreilly he has become much more diplomatic and “fair and balanced” and soft. Its because he wants to retain the #1 spot on cable news and to do that he has to have access to the Obama campaign and we worked hard at stringing him a long and keeping him soft for an interview swap. It worked and now he is anticipating more access. So he is playing it still soft.

Like Fox Mulder, we want to believe.  I don’t believe either one of these and encourage you to approach any other stories about internal Obama defectors with a grain of salt. They run a tight ship and would not let something like this happen and I really doubt they need to pay people to troll Internet sites. I doubt that our lovely liberal commenters are paid by Obama (they will be soon if he wins and starts redistributin’). They come here because they want to be enlightened and there is a huge chasm between their passion and their logic.

So, who do I think is perpetrating this fraud? It could be an eager but misguided Republican or disaffected Hillary voter who is trying to get our hopes up and encourage voter turnout. On the other hand, these anonymoids might be Obama plants meant to depress election day expectations. Who knows? At the end of the day, unless you trust the source, take all leaks like this with a grain of salt.

-Yossarian

Pennsylvania Getting Closer

Less than a week away and Obama’s lead is down to 4. Let’s win this state and get some Reagan Democrats out

Goodbye Murtha

His days in the House of Representatives are numbered:

Murtha 45.5 and Russell 43.7.

We are going to take that seat and get the most embarassing member of congress out. Don’t worry, I haven’t forgotten you either Tim Mahoney, D  FL-16. You are embarassing also

Is Pennsylvania Going Red?

Saw this from Hillbuzz. It all turns on Pennsylvania:

Tonight we spoke with a friend from Hillary Clinton’s campaign who is now working for McCain/Palin — and is specifically working with Democrats for McCain in Pennsylvania. We worked with her in Texas, Indiana, Ohio, and Pennsylvania for Hillary and have spent many LONG hours with her in the trenches in all of those states. She’s smart, doesn’t BS, and never lies.

She says the same thing we do: John McCain will win Pennsylvania.

On November 4th, the news networks are going to be spinning and sputtering and playing catchup, but everything we see on the ground in PA is what we saw during the primaries: Obama has no shot of winning the Keystone State.

Here is specifically what we talked about tonight: never in any of our careers have any of us ever seen members of one party switching sides and voting for the other party as we see in this election with Democrats for McCain. There has never been anything like it.  Not even the “Reagan Democrats” who voted for Reagan over Carter, for the simple fact that these “Reagan Democrats” weren’t identified and labeled until AFTER the election. 

No, Democrats for McCain are real, are voting for McCain right now, and are open and organized, as well as self-identifying.  Lynn Rothschild might be our poster gal, as one of the most prominent of our ranks, but it’s telling that everyone from Team Hillary that we know now works for McCain.  ALL OF US. Whether they are open about it, like we are, or are working quietly behind the scenes, we can’t think of a single person we worked with on a daily basis for Hillary who is now working on behalf of Obama.

We all truly believe that John McCain will work more closely with Hillary Clinton in the Senate and make it a priority to team up with her on legislation than Obama ever would. We also believe Obama winning this election means his supporters would actively seek to eliminate all Clinton loyalists from the Democratic Party, to consolidate his power base and purge anyone who is not 100% loyal to him.  For obvious reasons, those of us loyal to the Clintons will not let that happen without a fight.

But, this is all talking about leadership, and those of us who have invested two years of our lives in all of this — and have, in all honesty, spent every cent we had on this campaign. What about the regular voters?

Union members repeatedly tell all of us that they are lying to pollsters because the unions have been polling these people — and the unions will threaten people’s jobs if they don’t tow the union line. So, the people lie when asked whom they are supporting. But, the unions can’t control who they vote for on Election Day. And that’s when things are going to get interesting.

We do not believe Obama will carry Pittsburgh or Harrisburg in PA. He’ll win Philly, but not by the large margin he needs to take the state. You’ve heard Governor Ed Rendell is “worried” about Obama’s chances in Pennsylvania. That is an understatement. Obama will lose a state that hasn’t gone red in generations.

What’s happening here that’s not being reported is that “Reagan Democrats” who vote Republican whenever they feel that Democrats are out of touch, socialist, or too liberal are voting for McCain…and these people are being joined by PUMAs, DeMcCrats for McCain, Hillocrats, whatever you want to call them, who don’t like or trust Obama and who believe McCain/Palin would address the wants and needs of centrist Democrats much better than Obama ever would.

We personally believe this here at HillBuzz. That’s why we are doing this. We do not believe Obama will put the best interests of Americans first — instead, Obama will do what is best for Obama, the way he has always done. We do not trust this man or his socialist Kool-Aid and want no part of him.

In Pennsylvania, we are not alone.

The same people who ran the board for us in the primary — who assured us daily that the polls the media was pushing were wrong in claiming Obama would beat Clinton in PA — tell us on a daily basis that McCain is going to win Pennsylvania.  There’s a damn good chance this won’t even be close, if what people are seeing on the ground right now holds, and is indicative of the whole state.

DEMOCRATS are staffing McCain offices across the state. DEMOCRATS are phone banking and canvassing for McCain. DEMOCRATS are raising large sums to fund this last week of campaigning.

DEMOCRATS.

While hearsay on the ground is always one sided, I have been to a few events where I am hearing this.  To win this election, we need to win PA. I don’t think there is a chance in hell that we can win Pittsburgh, but I am interested in the union vote.  I have argued for some time that in the coming years, we are going to need to drop Wal-Mart and start courting the unions. Bush won a good percent of union members, but we need to expand that base. Todd and Sarah can do that.  She practically lives there now anyway.  Let’s hope on this

More on the 2-point lead in PA

LA Times:

Perhaps the Pennsylvania strategy embraced by the John McCain campaign makes sense after all.

The strategy has prompted skepticism. But much buzz today surrounds the apparently inadvertent leak of an internal poll by Barack Obama’s campaign in Pennsylvania that supposedly showed the Democrat leading there by only 2 percentage points — a much-slimmer margin than independent surveys have recorded for him and one that would make the race for the state a tossup.

An e-mail from a local Obama aide expressing concern about the internal poll’s findings ended up in the queue of a radio talk show host in Wilkes-Barre, Pa. He, in turn, interviewed Sean Smith, the Obama communications director for Pennsylvania.

Their chat can be heard here; as the host notes after it’s over, Smith doesn’t dispute that the campaign’s own polling gauged Pennsylvania a tossup.

And that may explain a related story making the rounds — a report that Pennsylvania’s Democratic governor, the politically savvy Ed Rendell, described himself in a memo as “a little nervous” about Obama’s standing in his state as he requested that the candidate return there soon for some more on-the-ground campaigning.

More Pennsylvania

Hotair seems to agree with me:

Nearly everyone in a position to know thinks the race for Pennsylvania’s 21 electoral votes is considerably tighter than what recent polls reveal.

“There’s a tendency in Pennsylvania for the polls to change dramatically in the final days,” says John Brabender, a top Republican political consultant based in Pittsburgh. “In the governor’s race in 2002, there were polls just a few days out showing [Democratic Gov. Ed Rendell] with a 25-point lead and he ended up losing 50 of 67 counties and won by nine points.”…

The McCain campaign’s formula for winning the state begins with the notion that, despite voter registration gains and strong support for Obama in Philadelphia, it would be difficult to wring more votes out of the state’s largest city than the Kerry campaign did.

They even believe they can carry a few of the heavily Democratic city’s 66 wards, a feat George W. Bush was unable to accomplish in 2004.

“We’re not convinced they can blow it out again,” said a McCain campaign source.

And in the four populous and historically Republican collar counties surrounding Philadelphia, the campaign believes McCain is a far better fit for the socially moderate suburbs than President Bush.