Judge issuing order to reinstate booted Philadelphia election officials, Republicans say

A Pennsylvania judge is issuing an order to reinstate Republican election officials across Philadelphia who allegedly were ejected or refused entry by on-site Democratic voting chief judges, GOP officials tell Fox News.

One Republican official claimed that "just under 70" Republican election officials were blocked from Philadelphia polling sites Tuesday morning by Democrats on site. One of them, the official claimed, "was shoved out of the polling place." 

"For this many inspectors to be ejected from polling places is rare, even for Philadelphia," the official told FoxNews.com. 

Elsewhere in the city, a representative from the New Black Panther Party was also spotted outside a polling site. The New Black Panthers stirred controversy in 2008 when members appeared outside a polling site, one of them holding a billy club. The representative seen Tuesday morning was not armed. 

The flap over the election judges, though, was widespread. Republicans claim they are obtaining a series of court orders to seat the so-called election "inspectors," and sheriff's deputies will be available to escort them. 

Despite the high number of officials who were allegedly booted, the dispute itself is not uncommon for Philadelphia. Fred Voigt, legal counsel for the city commissioners, said these kinds of face-offs happen "with regularity" in the City of Brotherly Love. 

"It happens all the time," Voigt said. He said court-appointed Republican officials typically show up on Election Day and end up squaring off against stand-in officials at the polling sites filling in the open seats. Part of the problem, he said, is that the Republican inspectors are appointed on relatively short notice, leading to a string of confrontations on Election Day. 

"There are no cool heads here," Voigt said. 

Via: Fox News

Continue Reading...

COMPLETE LIST OF WHERE U.N. POLL WATCHERS WILL BE STATIONED

COMPLETE LIST OF WHERE U.N. POLL WATCHERS WILL BE STATIONED

Oct 25, 2012 169 Comments Pat Dollard

Excerpted from THE HILL: United Nations election monitors from Europe and central Asia will be at polling places around the U.S. looking for voter suppression activities by conservative groups, a concern raised by civil rights groups during a meeting this week. The intervention has drawn criticism from a prominent conservative-leaning group combating election fraud. The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), a United Nations partner on democratization and human rights projects, will deploy 44 observers around the county on Election Day to monitor an array of activities, including potential disputes at polling places.

United Nations Election Observer Deployment 2012

Liberal-leaning civil rights groups met with representatives from the OSCE this week to raise their fears about what they say are systematic efforts to suppress minority voters likely to vote for President Obama.

The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, the NAACP and the ACLU, among other groups, warned this month in a letter to Daan Everts, a senior official with OSCE, of “a coordinated political effort to disenfranchise millions of Americans — particularly traditionally disenfranchised groups like minorities.”

The request for foreign monitoring of election sites drew a strong rebuke from Catherine Engelbrecht, founder and president of True the Vote, a conservative-leaning group seeking to crack down on election fraud.

Via: Pat Dollard

Continue Reading...

Awesome: Alabama House Leader Moves To Block UN Poll Watchers From Operating In His State…

Montgomery – In response to news that poll watchers affiliated with the United Nations will be sent across the country to monitor balloting in various states and search for evidence of “voter suppression” during the upcoming November 6 presidential election, Speaker of the House Mike Hubbard said he will support legislation in the next session requiring all poll watchers in Alabama to hold U.S. citizenship.

“The United States is the worldwide beacon of free elections and the Republican form of government, so having an international squad from the United Nations playing referee in our elections is insulting and absurd,” Hubbard said. “We’ve been holding elections in the U.S. for the past 223 years without the United Nations playing a role or enforcing the rules, and we certainly don’t want or need them now.”

At the request of several liberal-leaning groups including the American Civil Liberties Union, the NAACP and the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, a United Nations affiliate, announced it will deploy a team of poll watchers to polling sites across the country in order to monitor and document potential disputes.

The poll watchers will come from Serbia, Belarus, Ukraine, Kazakhstan, Germany and France, and other countries.

Hubbard said he will push the law in order to ensure U.N. observers are blocked from future elections in Alabama by allowing only those who are U.S. citizens to be certified as poll watchers in the state.

“If you can’t participate in an election in the United States, and if you can’t cast a vote in the United States, you really have no business serving as a poll watcher in an election being held in the United States,” Hubbard said. “It’s bad enough that Alabama remains trapped under the provisions of the Voting Rights Act, so we certainly don’t need anyone from the United Nations coming into our state and meddling in our elections, as well.”

Via: Yellow Hammer

Continue Reading...