Townhall’s Amanda Carpenter reports on a tip that voting machines in Philadelphia showed votes for Barack Obama — before polls opened:

I’m getting a tip that voting machines in Philadelphia were showing votes for Obama BEFORE the polls even opened

In the run-up to Election Day there was a nasty, partisan scuffle with the Board of Elections. Four GOP workers were removed by a liberal judge because they were “the minority party.” They purged the Republicans and deprived them of the ability to supervise the voting process.

I’m told that there are at least 6 precincts where this has occurred: in Philadelphia’s 44th Ward (divisions 12 and 13), in the 12th division of the 6th Ward, and in division 28 of the 32nd Ward. Recall too, that it was reported in 2004 that someone brandished a gun to scare poll watchers in one Philadelphia precinct.

It looks like the vote fraud is starting early in the City of Brotherly Love.

Update: Eric Wang was a poll watcher in Philadelphia in 2004. Shortly after election day, he described what he saw in an op-ed on University Wire:

I went to Philadelphia last week as part of the ‘Lawyers for Bush’ campaign. We went to the ‘battleground state’ of Pennsylvania and were caught in a battle of physical force. We had heard about the political ‘ground war,’ but instead found ourselves in the middle of an outright war. At the end of the day, I was cornered in a parking lot by roughly 10 large men, whom the police later identified as ‘union goons.’ After trying to tip over the minivan I was sharing with another attorney, punching it relentlessly, breaking parts off and failing to drag us out, they chased us in and out of the dense urban traffic in their high-powered SUVs. Only after a frantic 911 call and a police roadblock were our assailants apprehended. Even then, a growing mob surrounded us and we had to be secreted out of town to safety by a police escort. Our experience was not unique; several other ‘Lawyers for Bush’ teams in Philadelphia reported similar violence.

Hopefully today won’t produce any similar incidents.

Second Update: Amanda has clarified her earlier report — at least with regard to the ejection of poll watchers. It seems that there is a discrepancy over the credentials of the poll watchers in question, and a judge is currently considering the matter:

Pennsylvania Secretary of State Pedro Cortes says this matter is already being heard in court and should be resolved soon. He says there was a dispute of the names of the poll watchers on record. This is a different story than the Democratic officials told Fox News earlier this morning.