Rendell Accuses Corbett of Urging Illegal Voter Suppression
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Rendell Accuses Corbett of Urging Illegal Voter Suppression
Catherine Lucey and Chris Brennan
Gov. Ed Rendell today accused Republican governor candidate Tom Corbett of urging illegal voter suppression and suggested he should not be running for governor.
Rendell was speaking at the Black Clergy endorsement of Democrat Dan Onorato. His evidence was a video of Corbett telling the Delaware County GOP to keep the Philadelphia Democratic vote below 50 percent during next Tuesday's general election.
Rendell and Onorato could not say how the Delco GOP could suppress the local vote.
“He urged people to break the law," Rendell said after the event. "Voter suppression is against the law. And he clearly urged them to break the law. Now does he have a plan? How would we know? You’d have to ask him."
Onorato said he didn't want to "put words in his mouth" when asked what Corbett might have meant. "I think it's pretty powerful," Onorato said. "I think it's very clear what he's implying."
Here's an Associated Press story about that video. According to the AP, Corbett's people say his remarks were taken out of context.
UPDATE, 1:45 pm: Corbett spokesman Kevin Harley just e-mailed to call Onorato's complaint a "last-minute desperate attack."
"As usual, Dan Onorato isn’t interested in the whole truth. In the same breath as the only sentence that Dan Onorato would have you see, Tom Corbett said that he hopes for 100 percent turnout across Pennsylvania," Harley's e-mail continues. "Tom also expressed his hope that his campaign would receive support from Democrats, Republicans and Independents."
Did something change under the control of this thug Rendell that illegals can vote in PA? This from the man that stopped the military votes from being counted in Florida in 2000!— Airdoc- Rendell shouldnt be governor. He is a bully who stomps off mad if he doesnt get his way. He threatens all kind of service cuts if he doesnt get one of many tax increases passed.
He should leave office and go quietly. If Corbett wanted to, he could probably put him in jail with Fumo and his other crooked politician friends.— Pat c - Let's leave the law breaking on election day to the real professionals; Bob Brady and the Democrat machine that has ruined Philadelphia.— Kaiser Sosa
Comment removed.- Why wouldn't you want to suppress illegal voters???— GHK
- What's wrong with supressing illegal votes? As Attorney General that's Corbett's job.— MBowers
Shouldn't Rendell be focusing on awful post game live analysis at this point?— dpcoz- testing— Falls Ed
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- Why make this a story when you even quoted Fast Eddie and Fast Eddie Jr as saying they do not know how Coebett can suppress the vote. This rag is fast to bring up something that could be damaging to the Repulicans, but ignore the democrats offering jobs to get people out of the race or supporting bogus candidates. Philly Clout, thy name is hyprocrisy.— junethe4th
- agrees with "typical dems and rendell playing the race card with his good friends the black clergy." Very poor choice of words that opened the door for the dems to make a big tadoo about. Politics at it's best here— citigirl
Lol...Fast Eddy and the rediculous Dems are really desparate. Guess Eddy's gotten so used to the spotlight that now he needs to make stuff up just to stay in the limelight.- It was just a few years back when Rendell had all of the prisoners vote but didn't want the absentee ballots from our soldiers overseas to count. Now he's got a problem with Corbett?— BobbyD
- from meriam-webseter.com suppression Antonyms: disinhibition, incontinence, unconstraint. So there are two choices. illegal voter suppression and unconstraint illegal voter. I'll take first choice.— kicas
- Tough call. If you read the whole quote from AP it seems to indicate they want to keep Onorato below "50% of the vote" and not keep 50% of the voters away--they said they wanted Democrats and Republicans to vote for him. Still, that was a poor choice of words because it isn't clear what he really means.— MASTERNC
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- Maybe Corbett will suppress the illegal immigrants from voting. That could be a significant percentage of democrats, since citizenship proof is not necessary to register.— frankfj
- Of course if the Republicans tried to deter voters Atty General Holder would prosecute them, unlike the Black Panthers!
- Democrats are the real pros when it comes to cheating. Bob Brady has his Masters Degree in voter fraud — Kaiser Sosa
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- Maybe Corbert will use the Black Panthers. Oh wait, that's the Democracts.— ALJ
- At least make an effort to cite the actual group responsible, which would be the "New" Black Panthers. Yes, there's a difference and yes, most anyone in Philly that you ask about this ragtag group of whoopdeedoos would simply laugh at anything that has to do with them and find them to be a non-credible group of crazies. And that includes liberals and Democrats as well as sane Republicans who are educated and know who the group is. — phillybits
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David Gambacorta spent a small eternity writing about cops, drug dealers and serial killers. Now he’s writing about power and politics – which sometimes reminds him of the old crime beat. He joined the Daily News in 2005. And yes, he knows you’re not quite sure how to pronounce his last name. E-mail tips to gambacd@phillynews.com
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Jan Ransom, a native New Yorker, joined the Daily News in 2010 after graduating from Howard University. She has since written about the difficulty of filing police complaints, tax deadbeats and life after violent home invasions. She joined the Daily News City Hall Bureau in 2011 and has plunged headfirst into reporting on administration budget battles and City Council shenanigans. E-mail tips to ransomj@phillynews.com
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Sean Collins Walsh is from Bucks County and went to Northwestern University. He joined the Daily News copy desk in 2012 and now covers the Nutter administration. Before that, he interned at papers including The New York Times, The Dallas Morning News and The Seattle Times. E-mail tips to walshSE@phillynews.com
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