You make me chuckle, pal.
As somebody who has been a poll clerk or judge of elections in Pennsylvania for nearly 30 years, I challenge you to produce any substantive evidence of voter fraud in Pennsylvania.
The Philadelphia Republican election judges keep an extremely close watch over what goes on in Philadelphia. Several of them are FReepers and quite well known to me; I don't appreciate you impugning them on the ridiculous hearsay that passes for conventional wisdom here on FRee Republic when it comes to what goes on in Pennsylvania. The actual documented instances of fraud in Philadelphia number in the hundreds, not in the thousands, and certainly not in the tens of thousands.
Good grief! Do you have any idea how difficult it is to engineer a fraud of 75,000 votes, even in a state as populous a Pennsylvania?
In both 2000 and 2004 there were countless incidents of 100%, 102%, even 105% turnouts in some of the all-black precincts. I expect that some on the roster had long been dead, also.
Cite the proof. And please don't post some crap about what some convicted felon and former city councilman claimed at his sentencing hearing -- never proven -- or the usual nonsense from John Fund about election rolls: those numbers have nothing to do with actual ballot stuffing, and they are an artifact of the 2000 election law.
Without Philly, Bush wins Pennsylvania. Without fraud, Bush wins Pennsylvania.
Unadulterated, 100% pure, horse manure. With the high price of nitrogen fertilizer, maybe you can open a shop for the farmers in the Chino Valley or up in Visalia.
You and people like you are the reason that the California Republican Party can't get a dog catcher elected to office, and why the Party here in the Commonwealth is headed in the same direction. Now get this straight: Bush lost Pennsylvania in 2000 and 2004 because he lost in the five heavily Republican counties to the west and north of Philadelphia, and because he lost in the coal counties around Scranton/Wilkes-Barre. The Democrats always carry Philadelphia 80-20, and there is nothing new in those numbers in either of Bush's defeats. Blaming his loss on "election fraud" may fly in brainless places like the DU, but it has no place here. You want to keep on losing elections: keep on blaming ballot stuffers. It's bilge. I don't give up $1500 worth of billable hours every May and November to put up with this nonsense on a web forum where people ought to know better. The heavily populated Philly suburbs used to counterbalance the heavy Democrat vote in Philly. In the last two elections, they have not, it's that simple.
First of all, settle down. We're on the same team. And, I used to live in the north Philly suburbs so I'm closer to this issue than you think. Also, get some anger management therapy. My post to you was tongue-in-cheek but you took it personally. No need for you to jump all over California Republicans, either. There has been a sea change in political affiliation all over the country and this is not because of a party or poorly run elections. That's why LA and Orange Counties are now predictably Democratic when a mere 20 years ago they were equally predictably Republican. Ditto for entire states like New Hampshire. The people are changing more than the party.
Second, I agree with your assessment of the Philly suburbs. Folks that should be reliably voting Republican now vote Democrat. I think the problem is them, not our party. They're like all my wife's relatives who think, now that they are 40-50 and are comfortably middle class, can vote their heart and expiate their guilt by voting liberal. Republicans will win not by getting the guilty prosperous whites in Malvern, Blue Bell, Downingtown, and Bala Cynwyd to vote Republican, but to get larger majorities of the blue collar whites in rural Pennsylvania (Reagan Democrats) to vote our way.
Third, there is huge evidence of voter fraud in Philly. I am not an expert here but the internet is filled with them:
* Republicans excluded from monitoring city precincts; no Republican observers in 61% of precincts.
* 96% of voting-age adults registered. [Yeah, right. I know what the citizens of Philly are like. They are not the most civic-minded, straight-laced, honorable people in the nation. I expect a lot of dead people and non-existent people in the total.]
* Huge reports of voter irregularities on election day by a local watchdog.
Frankly, I think that we in the US are almost at the point where we need to mark citizens' fingers, like they do in third world countries, to force people to vote only once.
http://townhall.com/Columnists/PeterJWirs/2008/03/27/voter_fraud_has_begun_and_no_ones_noticed_yet
http://www.freerepublic.com/forum/a3a41f7e24141.htm
http://neighborhoodcivicpac.blogspot.com/2005/08/philadelphia-identified-as-no-1.html