On May 18, 1999, appellant Julie Welker ran against appellee Darrell Clarke in the Democratic primary for the Fifth Council District seat on the Philadelphia City Council. According to the official election results, Welker received 140 fewer votes than Clarke. Immediately following the election, Welker began an investigation of the area where Clarke had received the majority of his votes.
Welker maintains this investigation revealed a pattern of fraud and illegality, including votes cast by persons who did not meet Pennsylvania's residency requirements. More specifically, Welker alleged that, contrary to state law, officials of the County Board of Elections permitted persons who had moved to vote in the election districts where they had formerly resided. During discovery Welker produced lists of approximately 300 persons who cast votes, but whose listed addresses were for abandoned homes and empty lots.
She also identified persons who voted, but who had moved from the residence listed in the voter registration rolls many years prior. In two instances, those persons no longer resided in the city or county in which they voted. She argues that the intentional or reckless failure of the County Board and Division officials to comply with state residency requirements destroyed the integrity of the voter registration rolls and amounted to stuffing the ballot box in violation of the Civil Rights Act,
42 U.S.C. § 1983, the Voting Rights Act,
42 U.S.C. § 1971, and the Fourteenth Amendment. The validity of these causes of action is based on the specific allegation in Welker's complaint that election officials conspired with the Clark campaign to violate election laws in order to dilute the votes of Welker's supporters. In the absence of such an allegation, it is not clear that claims made by Welker would support intervention by a federal court in this election.