Phila. Poll Workers Bound Over For Court In Election Fraud Case
By Steve Tawa
PHILADELPHIA (CBS) - Three Philadelphia poll workers have waived their preliminary hearing after accusations that they tampered with a voting machine.
Assistant DA Michael Bonner alleges Election Judge Sandra Dee ordered Gregory Thomas and James Collins to register additional votes after the polls closed last November, when they discovered there were six less votes in the books than there were on the machines.
"It is tampering with democracy," Bonner says. "It's repeat voting in Philadelphia , and unfortunately, the notion of 'vote early and vote often' has to stop."
They were working at the Hancock Recreation Center polling place in North Philadelphia, trying to reconcile those numbers, and in doing so, allegedly fraudulently added six votes by tampering with a voting machine.
"To make sure that the books and the machine matched," Bonner adds.
Defense attorney Gregory Pagano, representing Dee, expects counsel for all defendants to submit requests for the pre-trial intervention program called A-R-D (Accelerated Rehabilitative Disposition) to favorably dispose of the charges.
The workers will be arraigned later this month.
