It really disturbs me that one of the Republicans’ core election strategies is to cheat. What we’re seeing locally here in the Philly suburbs is exceptionally blatant. Rep. Patrick Murphy (D-PA) represents part of Philadelphia and Montgomery County, but most of his district is in Bucks County. The Bucks County Board of Elections is dominated by Republicans. And they’re cheating.

Congressman Patrick Murphy blasted Bucks County Republicans for using “Florida-style” tactics to deny voters the right to participate in Tuesday’s election, which includes the hotly contested race between Murphy and his Republican challenger Mike Fitzpatrick.

Murphy’s statement in a brief news conference Wednesday afternoon came shortly before Democratic Party lawyers filed a response to Republican claims that Murphy’s campaign is behind an effort to mislead voters into applying for unneeded absentee ballots and flood the voter registration office with fraudulent applications.

In documents filed with the Bucks County Board of Elections, the state Democratic committee said the Republican Party machine that controls county government is working to disenfranchise voters.

“What makes their current scheme so egregious is that the Republicans are trying to prevent people, many of whom are ill or bedridden and incapable of going to the polls on Election Day, from legally casting absentee ballots,” wrote Philadelphia attorney Keith Smith, of Eckert Seamans Cherin & Mellott, in the response for state Democrats.

The response asked the board of elections to dismiss the Republican complaint in its entirety.

A letter to the board of elections penned for the state committee by Doylestown attorney Jordan Yeager noted that among more than 600 absentee ballot applications rejected by board of elections staff for defects including signatures and birthdates that don’t match voter registration records, 82 percent were from Democratic voters.

This is even more appalling when you consider that Murphy’s opponent sent out mailer that openly asked people to commit forgery and voter fraud. Pennsylvania doesn’t have early voting. We have a system for absentee voting. If you look at the form it requires you to sign under oath that you either will be absent from your municipality on election day or that you have some physical condition that doesn’t allow you to make it to the polling place. But inside Fitzpatrick’s envelope was a letter from Robert Ciervo, the candidate for state Representative from the 31st District. Ciervo said that an absentee ballot application was included in the package and that people should fill them out for their children and include their college address to “ensure they receive the ballot in a timely manner.” To do that, a parent would have to forge their child’s name. The letter is nothing short of an implicit invitation to commit forgery and voter fraud. And the Republicans are doing this at the same time that they are falsely accusing the Democrats of fraud and rejecting their valid absentee applications.

“It’s sickening that the Republican-controlled board of elections would abuse its power to deny hundreds of Democrats their right to vote. But because their candidate is down in the polls, Republican Party operatives are using Florida-style Bush tactics to stop registered, eligible voters from voting,” Murphy said Wednesday.

“Six Democratic applications have been rejected for every Republican application. Well, they’re messing with the wrong paratrooper, and they’re not going to get away with it,” he added, in reference to his Army service in Iraq.

I don’t know if Fitzpatrick is down in the polls. But the way the Republicans are behaving, that might not matter.