In 59 voting districts in Philadelphia and nine districts in Cleveland, not a single person voted for Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney on Election Day.
Philadelphia election official Stephanie Singer told The Daily Caller that the numbers are unofficial voting machine results, and that the city has not finished counting provisional ballots or absentee ballots.
Based on current data, President Barack Obama toppled Romney, 19,605 votes to 0, in the 59 Philadelphia districts. Those districts constitute about 3.5 percent of the city’s total population.
“We have always had these dense urban corridors that are extremely Democratic,” Jonathan Rodden, a Stanford University political science professor, told the Philadelphia Inquirer. “It’s kind of an urban fact, and you are looking at the extreme end of it in Philadelphia.”
Approximately 94 percent of the residents in the districts are black. Seven white residents were reported to be living in the districts in 2010, according to the Inquirer’s analysis of census data.
The staggering totals led some Republicans to raise the possibility of voter fraud.
“We believe we need to continue ensuring the integrity of the ballot,” Republican Party spokesman Steve Miskin told the Inquirer.
“I’d be surprised if there weren’t a handful of precincts that didn’t cast a vote for Romney,” said Larry Sabato, who runs the Center for Politics at the University of Virginia. “Not a single vote for Romney or even an error? That’s worth looking into.”
It is not unprecedented for a Republican candidate to garner zero votes in an urban district. In 2008, precincts in both Chicago and Atlanta registered no votes for Republican Sen. John McCain.
Obama claimed 93 percent of the African-American vote nationally in last Tuesday’s election.
