Posted on 11/04/2003 4:17:23 PM PST by randita
Posted on Tue, Nov. 04, 2003
Incidents mar Election Day
By Angela Couloumbis and Thomas J. Gibbons Jr. Inquirer Staff Writers
As voting continued throughout the city today, a court injunction and 36 reports of incidents at the polls highlighted the contentious nature of the mayor's race.
Mayor Street's campaign officials went to court and obtained an emergency injunction against a Katz supporter who was asking to see voters' identification before they entered the polls.
Later this afternoon, Katz's campaign obtained an injunction against an alleged Street campaign worker who was engaging in physical and verbal intimidation, harassment and coercion of voters in the 35th division of the 58th ward in the Northeast.
Mayor Street's campaign denied the man was associated with the campaign.
By early afternoon, police had recorded 36 incidents at polling places. They included disturbances, acts of threats, harassment, assaults and vandalism.
One of the more serious cases occurred at Front and Gladstone Streets in South Philadelphia when a 39-year-old man wearing a Sam Katz shirt, and passing out Katz flyers, allegedly was struck on the left elbow by a two-by-four wielded by a man on a bicycle. As the man rode away, he yelled: "It's all for Street," the victim told police. The victim was taken to St. Agnes Hospital for evaluation.
The day began on a tense note, when, shortly after the polls opened at 7 a.m., Republican candidate Sam Katz began complaining about violence against his supporters, as well as Election Day mishaps that appeared too organized to be coincidental.
Katz said that one of his supporters was punched in the mouth at a polling place near the University of Pennsylvania when that supporter asked a Street supporter to stop sticking pro-Street signs on top of pro-Katz signs.
Dr. Frank Cornett got treatment at an emergency room for the laceration. The alleged assailant fled and no immediate arrests were made, police said.
“That’s not usually part of voting where I come from,” said Cornett, 46, a Las Vegas native.
In addition, Katz said that in one division in the 63rd Ward, which is in the city's Fox Chase section in the Northeast, the wrong voting binder was delivered -- which means that in another voting division, a wrong voting binder was delivered.
Also, in Roxborough, Katz said he had heard that voting machines were broken. And in the 29th Ward, he said one of the Republican inspectors was denied access into the polling place.
"To borrow a phrase from Mayor Street, the campaign that he has run is a campaign that was supported by thugs, intimidation, threats of violence, and today, violence," Katz told reporters early this morning from his home polling place in Mt. Airy. "A campaign that has systematically engaged in election fraud ... and that would appear today to be carrying out a systematically planned effort to defraud the voters of their rights under the Constitution to vote. And to borrow a phrase from Mayor Street, it's a little too coincidental to be a coincidence."
Katz complained that the promise to put police officers on the street, outside polling places, appeared to have been ignored or forgotten.
"Where are the police here?" Katz asked. "Where are the police that were promised to be out on the street with a task force? So far, not a single division that we have heard from has a police officer."
Street, for his part, appeared relaxed when he went to cast his vote this morning in North Philadelphia with his wife, Naomi Post. He made no mention of any problems at the polls that he was aware of.
"I'm having a great day," Street said. "These campaigns are long and are hard, and it's always nice when they come to an end. I tell people it's almost like a law school class -- you always want more time, but then you never want any more time."
"I think we had a great campaign," Street said. "It's been very different from anything I've ever been through, and it's going to be a great day and I think we're going to have a great turnout."
At an election day luncheon at the Famous Deli, about 50 Democratic powerbrokers dined with Street, Gov. Rendell, Lenny Klehr and District Attorney Lynne Abraham.
Asked about the incidents reported at polling places, Street said: "It's a big election, and it's a big city and it's inevitable that there will be some conflict at the polls. But the information I have is that the kind of conflict we have had isn't out of the ordinary."
"This election, it's feeling a lot like a presidential election, in the sense that you have an unusual amount of interest that causes people to be real suspicious of things they think might be part of some conspiracy."
"I defy you to find a mayoral election where you haven't had some of that," Street said.
When asked if he was confident about the outcome, Street said: "I'm always going to be nervous about the election until the last vote is cast and we see how we do. But I feel very good about this election, ... I've always believe that in the end, the absolute end, our message would get through and people would understand that we have a great record."
At the same luncheon, Rendell lauded reports of high voter turnout, and addressed the contentious nature of the race.
"This is not the worst I've seen," Rendell said, adding that the Rizzo-Goode campaign was more passionate than this one. "I think nerves are a little rubbed raw but we have a tendency to magnify everything. We have a tendency to eat our own here in Philadelphia."
Contact staff writer Angela Couloumbis at 215-854-2827 or acouloumbis@phillynews.com. The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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