Phil. Transitworkers Screwed Themselves by Striking on Election Day

[JPZenger]

The Phila. Transitworkers Union screwed themselves. They messed up the schedule of many Democratic voters in Phila. by striking on Election Day. The strike caused those people to need to leave very early or arrive home very late from work.

As a result, many Philadelphias and people in the inner suburbs who use City subways and buses were too pre-occupied to vote, which hurt Dem results for statewide judges.

Next year, when the unions bring cases before PA. Appellate courts, they will find those courts dominated by Republicans.

We also can expect that legal challenges of Republican extreme gerrymandering of US House and State legislative districts will all be rejected by the Republican-controlled State Supreme Court, as occurred in 2002. That will likely mean 2 or 3 less Democratic US House members than what would otherwise naturally occur in PA.

(The AP said this afternoon there is an automatic recount because the results were so close for the 4th seat for Commonwealth Court.)
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From today's Daily News:
"In the 2007 Supreme Court race, Pittsburgh Democrat Debra Todd got more than 167,000 votes in Philly. Yesterday, Panella, with 95 percent of the city vote counted, got fewer than 93,000."

If the Dem turnout in Phila had not been so unusually low, the Dems would now control the Supreme Court.

[JPZenger]

1. Correction

The above post should read: "The AP said this afternoon there is an automatic recount because the results were so close for the 4th seat for SUPERIOR Court."

[demodonkey]

2. Another reason to have Election Day as a statewide and national Holiday.

I support unions and their right to strike, but striking on a workday that is also Election Day in a Democratic-base city like Philly that relies on public transportation as much as they do seems really, really stupid.

But then again, they are stupid enough to risk their election outcomes on (and they "love" according to Rendell) software-dependent ancient dinosaur Danaher voting machines.

Problem is, when Philly shoots itself in the foot, those of us in rest of the state pay the price too.

[PADEMJES12]

3. Yes seems somewhat foolish... in a sense

There is of course the sense of frustration and game of "gotcha", which we all acknowledge and is understandable in some respects. However, the Transit workers likely have long term screwed themselves and workers across the Commonwealth royally in some sense as u mention. However... that being said, it looks like there was absolutely ZERO effort in Philly to get out the vote. Turnout was like 12 percent. Allegheny county was 25, which is still bad... but 12 percent in Philly is absolutely pathetic. Even that difference from 12 to 20 or 25 percent could have "padded the blow" so to speak.

The philly and pittsburgh suburbs were a huge debacle. Thee Don Cunningham almost lost to a no name right wing extremist. I agree in some respects that not too much should be read into this. But, with the previous example... id suggest its absolutely foolish not to take notes.

[PADEMJES12]

4. Demodonkey that is a great idea i think