Washington Post’s Fairy Tale on Pennsylvania Voter Fraud

You can’t make it up. Unless, of course, you’re at The Washington Post.

Yesterday, PostGreg Sargent, columnist wrote this column:

GOP candidates add a repulsive new twist to Trump’s ‘big lie’

This is the text of Sargent, which includes information about GOP Senate Candidates in Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Ohio. Bold print to emphasize:

It’s hardly surprising to hear that Republican Senate candidates are campaigning on the “big lie” that the 2020 election was riddled with fraud. This has become so routine that it’s no longer treated as newsworthy, which further normalizes it, a terrible development that we should resist.

But, at least 4 of these candidates add an even more disgusting twist. Inventing widespread fraud 2020 they make it a point to emphasise that it was mostly in urban areas.

Is there something about cities that makes this area attractive for GOP candidates?

Sargent then continues by stating that it is because of — and of course — race. Sargent then says:

These are the same Republicans that traffic in illegal immigrants. It is an old story that fake GOP claims of voter fraud are used as a justification for voter suppression. Trump added some toxic ingredients to this stew, namely a stronger focus on cities to justify his explicit efforts to reverse election losses.

Sargent focuses on the GOP Senate Candidates. Sargent’s comment about this one stood out immediately to me:

This is a trend that Democratic operatives have been closely monitoring and noting. This week, former hedge funder David McCormick, who’s running for Senate in Pennsylvania, attacked the “lack of oversight in many of the precincts of Philadelphia.”

“The majority of Republican voters in Pennsylvania do not believe in the outcome of the election,” McCormick said, claiming the only way to ensure “an accurate election in 2024” is to elect more Republicans.

Note that McCormick effortlessly glides from claiming the problem is merely that GOP voters “don’t believe” Trump lost to insisting our election outcomes actually are suspect. Naturally, thanks to urban centers.

The only way to fix this problem in urban strongholds, McCormick forthrightly declares, is to elect Republicans to suppress more votes in them — oops, I mean, pursue measures ensuring “election integrity.”

It is possible that columnist Sargent doesn’t live in Pennsylvania as I do. Sargent has certainly not had a career working in Pennsylvania’s political system like I did. He worked for the Republican Leader, the Pennsylvania Republican State Senate and the Republican United States Senate. So one could write off Sargent’s wildly wrong assessment of Pennsylvania voting history as simple ignorance. One would expect a Post columnist to check facts before inventing something that is so outrageously false.

Actually, McCormick is 100% correct regarding voter fraud issues in Pennsylvania, and specifically Philadelphia.  Let me now list some of these problems. I’ll start with the headline in a Department of Justice press release from May 2020.

A former Philadelphia judge of elections was convicted of conspiring to violate civil rights and bribery

According to the release, this is not just for one, but two, but three Pennsylvanian elections that took place in 2014/2015 and 2016

Former Judge of Elections was found guilty for accepting bribes in order to vote fraudulently and certified false results at the Philadelphia primary election in 2014., 2015., 2016

Domenick J.Demuro (73), of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania pleaded guilty to conspiring against the deprivation of civil rights and to using interstate facilities to aid in bribery. Today the matter was unsealed by the court. Sentencencing is set for June 30, 2020.

Demuro admitted during his guilty plea hearing that he received bribes as a municipal judge of elections. He accepted money and other items in return for adding votes to the totals of certain candidates using the voting machines within his jurisdiction. Also, for the certification of the tallies for all ballots including fraudulent ones.  He also admitted that Demuro was given directions by a local politician and that he received money from the consultant to increase votes for certain candidates, such as candidates for judicial offices whose campaigns had hired the consultant.  Demuro also admitted that the votes he added in exchange for payments by the political consultant increased the number of votes fraudulently recorded and tallied for the consultant’s clients and preferred candidates, thereby diluting the ballots cast by actual voters.

Also, this was in a DOJ press release dated July 2020.

Ex-Congressman Convicted of Ballot Stuffing and Bribery.

The release was initiated in this manner:

Former U.S. Senator was indicted. A former U.S. Congressman has been indicted Tuesday for conspiring to violate voter rights. He was accused of falsifying records, manipulating ballot boxes, corrupting an election official and voting twice in federal elections.

Michael “Ozzie” Myers, 77, of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, is charged with conspiring with and bribing the former Judge of Elections for the 39th Ward, 36th Division, Domenick J. Demuro. Demuro previously pleaded guilty to the charge in Philadelphia Federal Court. His responsibility was for supervising and monitoring all activities and voting in his division, in accordance with state and federal election laws.

Go back to 2012 and see this headline The Philadelphia InquirerFollowing the Obama/Romney election

In 59 Philadelphia voting divisions, Mitt Romney got zero votes
While it’s one thing to have a Democratic presidential nominee dominate Philadelphia, look at this mind-blowing figure. In all 59 divisions of the city, Mitt Romney did not receive one vote. Zero. Zilch.

This is to state that this is statistically impossible and would have been possible with more ballot box tricks.

You can go back to October 2008, during which Obama-McCain won the election.

A retired Pennsylvania Supreme Court Justice and the Dauphin County District Attorney (Harrisburg) held a press conference at Pennsylvania State Capitol. I was there with Robert Gleason who was then Pennsylvania Republican State Chairman. He said this, and he provided supporting documentation:

ACORN was one of the groups that submitted 252,595 registered voters to Philadelphia County Election Board. There were 57.435 registrations rejected because they contained incorrect information. ACORN was responsible for most of these rejections. These registrations had incorrect social security numbers, dates of birth and clearly fraudulent signatures. There were also duplicate and invalid registrations. One case showed that a male voter was registered more than fifteen times in the 15 years since the primary election.

The problem of voter fraud is not limited to Philadelphia. ACORN targeted key states across the state.

But my favorite voter-fraud-in-Pennsylvania-elections story came in this report from 1994 in — yes indeed — The New York Times. This is the headline

Pennsylvania Senate shifts from a vote-fraud ruling

It TimesReport this. Bold print to emphasize was used:

Saying Philadelphia’s election system had collapsed under ‘a massive scheme’ by Democrats to steal a State Senate election in NovemberToday, a Federal Judge invalidated the vote and set aside the Republican nominee to fill the vacant seat.

Clarence C. Newcomer from Federal District Court made such a bold move that it enabled the Republicans to win control of the State Senate. This was something they didn’t do in the election.

Judge Newcomer found that William G. Stinson’s Democratic Campaign had stolen Bruce S. Marks’ election in North Philadelphia’s Second Senatorial District. This was done through an elaborate fraud where hundreds of voters were encouraged to cast absentee votes despite not having any legal reasons, such as a disability or scheduled travel outside of the city.

Now. Let’s get back to PostThis is what Columnist Sargent said:

Note that McCormick effortlessly glides from claiming the problem is merely that GOP voters “don’t believe” Trump lost to insisting our election outcomes actually are suspect. It is all thanks to the urban centers.

Hello? Hello Mr. Sargent! The reason Mr. McCormick is “insisting our election outcomes actually are suspect. Thanks to urban centers, naturally” is because, yes, in documented fact, in one election cycle after another in Pennsylvania, this has been true. For attempting to manipulate not just one but three elections, people have been arrested and convicted. With a federal judge overturning another, quite separate, State Senate election in Philadelphia because of what the judge said was ‘a massive scheme’ by Democrats to steal a State Senate election”, adding that the campaign of the Democratic candidate had “stolen the election…through an elaborate fraud.”

This is the simple fact of it. Washington Post columnist would attempt to fool readers into believing none of this happened and that, whether its Donald Trump or Dave McCormick or any other Pennsylvania candidate raising the issue, they do it because of race and not the factual reality of Pennsylvania political history is exactly an illustration of why conservatives simply don’t trust The Washington Post.

It will be impossible to make the fairytale that Pennsylvania has no voter fraud true by printing it.