In an August, 2005 report, The American Center for Voting Rights pinpointed Philadelphia as the nation's Number One vote fraud hot spot. Meanwhile, Wall Street Journal columnist and vote fraud expert John Fund has wondered, as do I, how is it exactly that Philadelphia's number of registered voters has gone up so markedly, while its population has declined? I suppose the answer must have to involve an aggressive voter registration program - and if the new registrants are almost all legal, well, good, then. But wouldn't it be nice to actually know? Especially before the ballots are cast?

Such concerns are not limited to Democratic bastions of vote fraud. That's why 24 states require voters to show identification before voting, and a nonpartisan commission including no less than former President and liberal moonbat Jimmy Carter last year endorsed voter ID, too. So now get this: The Philadelphia Inquirer reports today that Pennsylvania's Democratic Guv, former Philly Mayor Ed Rendell, has vetoed state legislation to require voter ID at the polls, and to bar the use of private homes as polling places. More from The Inky:

Gov. Rendell used Presidents' Day to announce his veto of a bill that would require all voters to show identification whenever they go to the polls. Seated in front of a dozen of the city's African American leaders, Democrats all, Rendell said at a news conference that House Bill 1318 would have the effect of denying some people their right to vote. The legislation, he said, would discourage voting at a time when "we should be doing everything we can to increase voter participation."...The original bill would have prohibited felons on probation or parole from voting and would have said that only photo IDs were acceptable. Those provisions were scrapped in a compromise move to ensure the bill's passage.

"You need identification to get into an office building, to get on a plane, to write a check, to use any sort of government service," said Eileen Melvin, who chairs the state Republican Party. "Why shouldn't it be required for something as important as voting?" But Rendell said that such a requirement would impose an "unnecessary burden" on people without easy access to identification, including nursing-home residents, the displaced, the very poor, the elderly, the homeless, and those without driver's licenses....On another front, the bill rejected by Rendell would restrict the use of private homes as polling places, a practice that is common in residential sections of Philadelphia....Republican sponsors of the bill have argued that polling places in private homes often are inaccessible to the disabled and that the homes often are owned by local politicians, creating the potential for intimidation and harassment.

Among the groups supporting the veto were Common Cause, AARP Pennsylvania, the ACLU, the League of Women Voters, the state AFL-CIO, the Philadelphia NAACP, the Urban League of Pittsburgh, and the Philadelphia Federation of Teachers.

Quelle surprise, there. Rendell's rumored as a possible Democratic candidate for president in '08, but even if he doesn't run, indiscriminate voter enfranchisement to facilitate fraud in urban locales is key to Democratic electoral strategy, locally and nationally. When your ideas aren't good enough to win, you've got game the system instead. Sadly, there do not appear to be enough votes in the state legislature to override Rendell's veto.

TECHNORATI TAGS: PENNSYLVANIA, PHILADELPHIA, VOTER ID, ED RENDELL, VETO, VOTE FRAUD