In light of today’s revelations that Rep. Patrick Murphy’s (D-PA 8) campaign was directly linked to a fictitious voter assistance office and absentee ballot scheme, challenger Mike Fitzpatrick has seized the opportunity to ask questions of Murphy and his campaign, which has been stingy, at best, in its disclosure with the press.
At issue is whether Rep. Patrick Murphy was directly involved, and whether absentee ballots were tampered with or discarded as they were proceeded through the post office box maintained by Tim Persico, his campaign manager.
Battle ‘10 has covered this story here, here, and here.
“Patrick Murphy needs to come clean as to what his campaign is doing with absentee ballots once they are picked up,” said communications director Darren Smith in comments to Battle ‘10.
“Patrick Murphy also needs to come clean as to why this summer his interns collected signatures for Tom Lingenfelter, which the Commonwealth Court later found to be forged. These patterns of allegations are very troubling and need to be fully investigated.”
Fitzpatrick called for a U.S. attorney investigation into the allegations of voter fraud and tempering at a press conference this afternoon in Bensalem, Pa. Fitzpatrick described four key questions that he called on the Murphy campaign to answer:
1. Who compiled and targeted the mailing list, and, why did they choose to prey on those specific voters?
2. Who paid for these bogus mailings? Where is it accounted on finance reports as the scheme appears to be initiated in August 2010.
3. For whom were the door knockers working, and, who coached them to break the rules? Who provided the door knockers with door-to-door lists? Where did they get the lists?
4. Where is a full accounting of what was done with all the applications they received? Did they throw out the applications of Independents and Republicans?
Battle ‘10 has video of the Fitzpatrick press conference below, along with an exclusive interview with Patricia Poprik of the Bucks County Republican Party, describing how the absentee ballot scheme unravelled:
Update: A Battle ‘10 reader writes in:
Are you aware of the similar situation in Chicago? There it appears, at least at this point, that the Democrats are disenfranchising their own voters, but the practice of having all absentee ballots returned to the Party instead of the Registrar or Election Commission is a new one on me. How can this be a good idea anywhere? Or even legal? But I wager Democrats in PA and Chicago didn’t hatch the scheme independently.