Donald Trump stated yesterday that the only way he can lose PA is if Hillary “cheats.” I found it curious that he was specifically picking on PA, why not OH or FL or VA? Then I remembered the infamous Philadelphia voting fraud debacle. It’s ba-a-ack.
There was a popular post that was widely circulated in RW circles that the 2012 Presidential election was “rigged.” Seems like that was the only way they could keep their heads from exploding when faced with the reality of an African-American President. A few weeks ago, my wife saw the diatribe posted again by one of her RW Facebook “friends.” Presumably this is evidence of a Democratic conspiracy and that Obama could not possibly have won legitimately. I repeat it here in its entirety.
Most everyone suspected fraud, but these numbers prove it and our government and media refuse to do anything about it.
As each state reported their final election details, the evidence of voter fraud is astounding. Massive voter fraud has been reported in areas of OH and FL, with PA, WI and VA, all are deploying personnel to investigate election results.
Here are just a few examples of what has surfaced with much more to come.
* In 59 voting districts in the Philadelphia region, Obama received 100% of the votes with not even a single vote recorded for Romney. (A mathematical and statistical impossibility).
* In 21 districts in Wood County Ohio, Obama received 100% of the votes where GOP inspectors were illegally removed from their polling locations - and not one single vote was recorded for Romney. (Another statistical impossibility).
* In Wood County Ohio, 106,258 voted in a county with only 98,213 eligible voters.
* In St. Lucie County, FL, there were 175,574 registered eligible voters but 247,713 votes were cast.
* The National SEAL Museum, a polling location in St. Lucie County, FL had a 158% voter turnout.
* Palm Beach County, FL had a 141% voter turnout.
* In Ohio County, Obama won by 108% of the total number of eligible voters.
NOTE: Obama won in every state that did not require a Photo ID and lost in every state that did require a Photo ID in order to vote.
It turns out that every claim in this diatribe has been investigated, in detail and verbatim, by Snopes.com, and every one was found to be FALSE. The Snopes article on this is a fun read.
The Philadelphia claims in particular were quite remarkable. How could entire voting divisions in Philadelphia possibly have voted 100% for Obama? Seems like voter fraud is at least a plausible explanation. Well it turns out that overall, Philadelphians actually voted for Obama by an 85-14 margin in 2012. And in fact,
Obama also received greater than 90% of the vote in more than half of Philadelphia's 66 wards, and 99% or more of the vote in seven of those wards. That result was hardly surprising given that, as the Philadelphia Inquirer noted, those wards are "clustered in almost exclusively black sections of West and North Philadelphia"
So it is not a “statistical impossibility” that many voting divisions voted 100% Democratic. Given the small size of many divisions and the Obama landslide in the city, it would have been highly unlikely not to have found at least a few.
The Philadelphia Inquirer did a follow up study, because there were actual registered Republicans in many of those 100% divisions, and why wouldn’t they have voted for Romney? Well, guess what – even with a door-to-door search, given the addresses on record for registered Republicans, they couldn’t find a single Romney voter.
Although voter registration lists, which often contain outdated information, show 12 Republicans live in the [28th] ward's third division, The Inquirer was unable to find any of them by calling or visiting their homes.
Eighteen Republicans reportedly live in the nearby 15th Division, according to city registration records. The 15th has the distinction of pitching two straight Republican shutouts — zero votes for McCain in 2008, zero for Romney. Oh, and 13 other city divisions did the same thing in 2008 and 2012.
They found abandoned apartments, locked doors, and erroneous registration information, but no Republicans. This quote was my personal favorite:
On West Albert Street, Duke Dunston says he knows he's a registered Republican, but he's never voted for one.
So I am guessing that this Philadelphia "voter fraud” meme, or some variant of it, made its way into the Trump universe and became the basis for Trump’s latest claim that PA is likely to be “rigged.” In fact, the truth is much simpler and pretty easy to establish. Republicans are perfectly capable of losing elections on their merits in Philadelphia. And lots of other places, as well.