Two employees of a company once aligned with the Republican Party of Florida admitted to law-enforcement authorities that they forged voter registration forms. It’s the first result in a far-reaching voter fraud investigation that was launched last fall – and initiated at the urging of the party after election supervisors started flagging questionable applications. The Florida Department of Law Enforcement reported Tuesday that the two ex-employees were charged with a third degree felony. But prosecutors back in January decided to place both of them on probation because neither has a criminal history. Strategic Allied Consulting was hired by Republicans to do voter registration drives in Florida and other states. But last fall, the state party fired the company and took the additional step of filing an election fraud complaint against the company with state officials.
This does not end the investigation into Strategic Allied. There are four other cases across the state still under investigation according to FDLE.
But Frederick Petti, an attorney who represents the company, said he’s already been told by law-enforcement authorities that the investigation is focused on no more than six employees. He said Strategic Allied had roughly 2,000 employees in Florida and said the end result shows that the controversy was a “tempest in a teapot.”
“What this comes down to is that we had had a few employees who were not good employees,” Petti said. “They were filling out fake forms.”
Full Article: Florida finds evidence of voter registration fraud | News-JournalOnline.com.