Old time machine Dem caught with most fraudulent petition signatures ever.
This incident is a fine example of Allegheny County's (that's Pittsburgh and its suburbs) problem - a 72 year old Machine politician who is so addicted to the perks and power of holding elective office he doesn't have the sense to frigging retire. Politicians like this turn younger generations off from voting at all, let alone registering as a Democrat. Having served 7 terms in office in the State House gets him a lifetime state pension of 2.5 x 13 years( i.e, 33%) x the annual average of his last 3 years' salary in office. Figure around $72,000 a year plus an increment for being a committee chairman to make around $75,000 a year x 33% =s $24,750 per year pension, plus lifetime full health insurance including prescription, dental ($3000 per year) and eyeglasses. Next add in his social security.
He turned in petition sheets with 358 signatures. 343 were challenged and he dropped out of the primary rather than wait to be humiliated in court and then thrown off the ballot. What were some of the names? Australian actors Russell Crowe & Naomi Watts, Pennsylvania poet laureate Sam Hazo, pioneer sports medicine physician Freddie Fu, Steeler great Jerome Bettis, county council president John De Fazio - none of whom live in Robinson's district. One might place Allegheny County Councilman Bill Robinson’s nominating petitions among the great works of political fiction were they not so unimaginative and repetitive.
For campaigners too lazy to comb the streets gathering signatures, the time-honored shortcut always has been to copy names from a list of registered voters. Maybe you switch hands as you copy the names to mask their single source, but you just hope that nobody checks back with these people and that they’re not dead. We’ve seen the occasional forgery conviction for such trickery, but at least those showed real effort.
What Mr. Robinson turned in, however, is downright embarrassing for someone with more than 40 years in politics. The Hill District Democrat has served on city council, in the state House of Representatives and on county council, so he’s a veteran of dozens of campaigns. Yet he turned in sheets, endorsed with his signature, that are so clearly fictional that one can only look at them in awe.
Do the challengers have a strong case? I don’t know. Is the Monongahela damp? Are there any deer in Mt. Lebanon?
It’s hard to know where to begin. One is tempted to start with the Australian-born actors, Naomi Watts and Russel (sic) Crowe, whose names stand amid the muddle of signatures on Mr. Robinson’s petitions that appear to have been written by a single hand. We might also note that his own name appears at his address on four different pages.
http://www.post-gazette.com/opinion/brian-oneill/2015/03/22/Brian-O-Neill-It-s-hard-to-find-right-name-for-Bill-Robinson-s-petitions/stories/201503220101
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… without a trace.
Complainers get a free tin foil hat! 
