Florida: The real GOP voter fraud: Employees admit forging voter registration forms | MSNBC

The Florida Department of Law Enforcement revealed Tuesday that two employees of a company hired by the Republican Party of Florida to register voters admitted they committed fraud during the 2012 election season. The two former employees of Strategic Allied Consulting are facing third degree felony charges after admitting that they submitted dozens of forged voter registration applications last fall ahead of the 2012 election. The employees, Rebekah Joy Paul and Christian Davis Price, told investigators they forged forms in order to meet the required number of applications and receive payment. Paul also said that her bosses at Strategic Allied instructed her to not register Democrats, although a lawyer for the company denies that allegation.

Virginia: Voter fraud case expands to focus on GOP firm | The Washington Post

The investigation into the arrest of a man on charges of dumping voter registration forms last month in Harrisonburg, Va., has widened, with state officials probing whether a company tied to top Republican leaders had engaged in voter registration fraud in the key battleground state, according to two persons close to the case. A former employee of Strategic Allied Consulting, a contractor for the Republican Party of Virginia, had been scheduled to appear last Tuesday before a grand jury after he was charged with tossing completed registration forms into a recycling bin. But state prosecutors canceled Colin Small’s grand jury testimony to gather more information, with their focus expanding to the firm that had employed Small, which is led by longtime GOP operative Nathan Sproul.

Virginia: Man registering voters for GOP accused of tossing forms in trash | latimes.com

A man who was being paid to register voters by the Republican Party of Virginia was arrested Thursday after he was seen dumping eight registration forms into a dumpster. Colin Small, 31, was working as a supervisor as part of a registration operation in eight swing states financed by the Republican National Committee. Small, of Phoenixville, Pa., was first hired by Strategic Allied Consulting, a firm that was fired by the party after suspect voter forms surfaced in Florida and other states. The owner of a store in Harrisonburg, Va., told a local television station that he became suspicious when he saw a car with Pennsylvania plates dump an envelope in back of his store. He recovered the envelope and alerted authorities. “He made a mistake and he’s being charged with it, which we fully support,” said Sean Spicer, a spokesman for the Republican National Committee. The committee paid more than $3 million to state committees to finance the get-out-the-vote operation.

National: Fired RNC consultant preps get-out-the-vote campaign | latimes.com

The political consultant fired by the Republican National Committee amid fraud allegations in Florida is now hiring workers for a voter canvassing operation this fall in as many as 30 states, his spokesman said. Nathan Sproul, whose career as a GOP get-out-the-vote consultant has been dogged by reports of fraudulent registrations, has been advertising for $15-an-hour workers for “conservative voter identification” in Virginia, Wisconsin and Iowa. ‘No experience is necessary!” says the ad, first reported by the liberal blog BlueNC. “All you need to qualify is a positive attitude and a strong work ethic to get the job done.” The ad says applicants must pass a criminal background check. Sproul was hired this year by the RNC to register and canvass voters in eight swing states, under the name of Strategic Allied Consulting. Sproul told the Los Angeles Times that he set up that firm because RNC officials, fearful of bad publicity, wanted to conceal his role in the operation. Sean Spicer, an RNC spokesman, said that never happened. He said the party believed that Sproul had strong systems in place to prevent such problems, but dumped him after the allegations surfaced because it has “zero tolerance” for fraud.

Maryland: Officials not concerned about voter-registration fraud | Capital Gazette

Volunteers, interest groups and any individuals who want to print out the proper forms are rushing to register voters as Maryland’s deadline looms less than two weeks away. But while recent voter-registration scandals have been cause for concern in some states, the state Board of Elections said the focus in Maryland is on voter roll maintenance, not registration fraud prevention. “There’s a process in place, a very specific process that we work through,” said Ross Goldstein, spokesman for the board. “We meet the letter of the law with respect to voter registration list maintenance.” Prominent businessman and voter-registration drive leader Nathan Sproul, who runs Strategic Allied Consulting, is at the center of a voter-fraud registration scandal in Florida. Sproul, who has consulted prominent Republican candidates such as Mitt Romney, was linked to hundreds of forms containing irregularities, including suspicious signatures and missing information in nine Florida counties. Voter-registration fraud such as this, or when firms don’t send in forms for voters from the opposite party, is insidious, said Paul Herrnson, director for the Center for American Politics and Citizenship at the University of Maryland.

National: Nathan Sproul, A Republican Operative, Long Trailed by Voter Fraud Claims | NYTimes.com

For a year, the Republican National Committee has portrayed Democrats as the villains when it comes to voter fraud. In a provocative article on CNN’s Web site, the committee’s chairman, Reince Priebus, said, “Democrats know they benefit from election fraud.” The tables have turned, however, and Republicans are now playing defense over the role of a well-paid operative, Nathan Sproul, in a voter registration scandal that emerged in Florida and has spread to other states. The Florida Department of Law Enforcement said it was reviewing “numerous” claims involving a company that Mr. Sproul runs to determine if a criminal investigation is warranted. Complaints have surfaced in 10 Florida counties, among them allegations that registrations had similar signatures or false addresses, or were filed under the names of dead people. In other cases, party affiliations appeared to have been changed.

National: Voter registration fraud claims singe GOP | CBS News

Revelations that the Republican National Committee urged several states to hire a consulting firm that submitted potentially fraudulent voter registration forms in Florida are continuing to cause embarrassment to the Republican Party. RNC spokesman Sean Spicer said Thursday his group had cut ties to the firm, Strategic Allied Consulting, citing “zero tolerance” for voter fraud. “This is an issue we take extremely seriously,” he told CBS News. “When allegations were brought to our attention we severed all ties to the firm.” The Los Angeles Times reported that the RNC urged the state GOP in seven swing states to hire the firm, despite the fact that the man who runs it, Nathan Sproul, has been accused of running firms that have destroyed Democratic registrations. Sproul told the newspaper that RNC officials asked him to set up a new firm, Strategic Allied Consulting, so that his efforts would not be linked to those allegations. The RNC has reportedly paid the firm at least $3.1 million via state parties. Sproul blamed the suspicious forms on a single employee in Palm Beach County. But Florida election officials tell CBS News they have found a “couple hundred” voter registrations in eight Florida counties with “irregularities” that deserve further scrutiny. They are currently reviewing the registrations and if they find them to be “legally significant” they will turn them over to law enforcement. This could happen by the end of the day.

Florida: Election supervisor refutes Strategic Allied Consulting claim | ABC-7.com

Lee County Election Supervisor Sharon Harrington says she doesn’t believe one person is responsible for more than 100 bogus election registration forms discovered in Florida. “I don’t believe it’s all just one person.  It might be one person in a specific area,” said Harrington, who was referring to claims submitted by Strategic Allied Consulting. The company is accused of forging voter registrations around the state.  They were hired by the Republican Party and then fired after the allegations surfaced in Florida, North Carolina, Colorad, Nevada and Virginia.

Florida: Elections supervisors wonder how to deal with GOP voter registrations | Tampa Bay Times

With less than a week before the deadline to register to vote in the November election, Republican state leaders who had made voter fraud a top issue are offering little insight into how they are handling the increasing numbers of suspicious registration forms being found throughout Florida. Last week, the Florida Department of Law Enforcement began a review of Strategic Allied Consulting after the company turned in more than 100 botched voter registration forms in Palm Beach County on behalf of the Republican Party of Florida. Subsequently, 10 other counties — Bay, Charlotte, Duval, Escambia, Lee, Okaloosa, Pasco, Miami-Dade, Santa Rosa and Walton — have reported similar issues with registration forms linked to that firm. On Monday, a top elections official announced that the FDLE was investigating a second group, the National Council of La Raza, the largest Hispanic civil rights organization in the United States, for turning in three questionable registration forms in Miami-Dade County. The two cases, so far at least, are hardly equal in magnitude.

Texas: Voter fraud? Charlie Gonzalez, Texas Democrats say it’s Republicans guilty of ‘abuses’ | Houston Chronicle

Apparently dead people love to vote. Just weeks after Texas counties tried to purge their voter rolls by eliminating supposedly deceased voters (many of whom beg to disagree), it turns out that a firm hired by the Republican National Committee may have been registering truly deceased Republicans to vote in Florida. In ironic turn of events, the Republicans who have been strong proponents of the Voter ID laws, insisting that voter fraud does in fact exist, are now smack dab in the middle of a voter fraud investigation. A real, live criminal investigation.

Uncategorized: Florida elections supervisors wonder how to deal with GOP voter registrations | Tampa Bay Times

With less than a week before the deadline to register to vote in the November election, Republican state leaders who had made voter fraud a top issue are offering little insight into how they are handling the increasing numbers of suspicious registration forms being found throughout Florida. Last week, the Florida Department of Law Enforcement began a review of Strategic Allied Consulting after the company turned in more than 100 botched voter registration forms in Palm Beach County on behalf of the Republican Party of Florida. Subsequently, 10 other counties — Bay, Charlotte, Duval, Escambia, Lee, Okaloosa, Pasco, Miami-Dade, Santa Rosa and Walton — have reported similar issues with registration forms linked to that firm. On Monday, a top elections official announced that the FDLE was investigating a second group, the National Council of La Raza, the largest Hispanic civil rights organization in the United States, for turning in three questionable registration forms in Miami-Dade County. The two cases, so far at least, are hardly equal in magnitude.

National: Voter registration fraud claims singe GOP | CBS News

Revelations that the Republican National Committee urged several states to hire a consulting firm that submitted potentially fraudulent voter registration forms in Florida are continuing to cause embarrassment to the Republican Party. RNC spokesman Sean Spicer said Thursday his group had cut ties to the firm, Strategic Allied Consulting, citing “zero tolerance” for voter fraud. “This is an issue we take extremely seriously,” he told CBS News. “When allegations were brought to our attention we severed all ties to the firm.” The Los Angeles Times reported that the RNC urged the state GOP in seven swing states to hire the firm, despite the fact that the man who runs it, Nathan Sproul, has been accused of running firms that have destroyed Democratic registrations. Sproul told the newspaper that RNC officials asked him to set up a new firm, Strategic Allied Consulting, so that his efforts would not be linked to those allegations. The RNC has reportedly paid the firm at least $3.1 million via state parties. Sproul blamed the suspicious forms on a single employee in Palm Beach County. But Florida election officials tell CBS News they have found a “couple hundred” voter registrations in eight Florida counties with “irregularities” that deserve further scrutiny. They are currently reviewing the registrations and if they find them to be “legally significant” they will turn them over to law enforcement. This could happen by the end of the day.

Editorials: Voter-fraud shocker?! On behalf of … the GOP? | latimes.com

Republicans’ current crop of “voter security” laws are Democrats’ “voter suppression” laws. For several years now, Republican-led legislatures have been loud in their concerns about what amounts to a solution in search of a problem: massive, organized voter fraud in order to steal elections. Real verified instances of organized, deliberate voter fraud can likely be counted in the scores at best, and Republicans have been ardent about using the specter of the now-disbanded ACORN group to raise a national warning. … So get a load of what’s just happened. There has emerged some potential voter fraud – possibly by a group hired by Republicans themselves, which puts me in mind of the verse in Matthew, in the Gospels, “And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother’s eye, but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye?” which essentially means, who are you, Mr. Pot, to call the kettle black? The controversy surrounds a Republican political consulting firm whose chief operated a voter registration project that was investigated by the Justice Department and several state officials in 2004 on fraud allegations; charges were never filed, and in this 2012 instance, GOP officials, including the Republican National Committee, have been scrambling to fire the consulting firm to contain the political fallout a little over a month before the elections.

Colorado: Girl in viral voter registration video worked for shady firm | koaa.com

We’ve learned the girl filmed in a viral YouTube video while registering voters at a local grocery store was employed by a company just dumped by the Republican National Committee over allegations of voter fraud. The video got a half-million views in just a few days, becoming an overnight Internet sensation with national attention. The girl gathering voter registrations claimed she was working for the El Paso County Clerk & Recorder’s Office, and said at one point she preferred to register only Mitt Romney supporters. After speaking with local party heads and campaign officials, it was determined the girl was not working for the county clerk, but for a consulting firm hired by the state GOP. Eli Bremer, chairman of the El Paso County Republicans, explained to News 5 that it was the girl’s first day on the job, and said she misspoke when asked who was “paying her”. Wayne Williams, the El Paso County Clerk & Recorder, also confirmed that what she was doing– prescreening voters with preference questions before offering a voter registration form– was not illegal.

Florida: Suspicious Voter Forms Found in 10 Florida Counties | NYTimes.com

The number of Florida counties reporting suspicious voter registration forms connected to Strategic Allied Consulting, the firm hired by the state Republican Party to sign up new voters, has grown to 10, officials said, as local election supervisors continue to search their forms for questionable signatures, addresses or other identifiers. After reports of suspicious forms surfaced in Florida, the company — owned by Nathan Sproul, who has been involved in voter registration efforts since at least the 2004 presidential election — was fired last week by the state Republican Party and the Republican National Committee. The party had hired it to conduct drives in Colorado, Nevada, North Carolina and Virginia. In Colorado, a young woman employed by Strategic Allied was shown on a video outside a store in Colorado Springs recently telling a potential voter that she wanted to register only Republicans and that she worked for the county clerk’s office. The woman was fired, said Ryan Call, chairman of the Colorado Republican Party.

Florida: Congressman demands immediate investigation of voter registration ‘scandal’ | Sun-Sentinel.com

U.S.Rep. Ted Deutch, D-Boca Raton, on Monday demanded “immediate” creation of a bipartisan group to investigate the “growing voter fraud scandal” surrounding a company hired by the Florida Republican Party. When staffers began to input the data, Bucher said they noticed “discrepancies or questionable signatures that looked similar.” Bucher said she turned over copies of 106 voter registration applications on Sept. 24. Later in the week elections officials in eight other Florida counties reported potential problems with the voter registration applications collected by the same firm, Strategic Allied Consulting. On Monday, Deutch – who represents southwestern Palm Beach County and northern Broward – said Scott needs to act.

National: Potential voter registration fraud in Florida: GOP’s own ‘ACORN’ scandal? | CSMonitor.com

The Republican Party promptly fired a voter registration contractor this week after the firm, Strategic Allied Consulting, turned in illegible, incorrect, and falsified voter registration forms to Florida election officials. Saying the party has “zero tolerance” for voter fraud, the GOP also filed complaints against the company with the Florida Secretary of State’s office. The company, run by long-time GOP operative Nathan Sproul, says a single employee was responsible for the forged signatures, though the problem, by Friday, had spread to 10 counties. “This is an issue we take extremely seriously,” RNC spokesman Sean Spicer told CBS News. “When allegations were brought to our attention we severed all ties to the firm.” While reasonable, those explanations could have trouble finding traction among the US electorate, which has watched battles erupt in mostly swing states from Florida to Ohio over control of voter rolls, and heated debates about potential disenfranchisement of key Democratic constituencies, poorer, minority, and elderly voters.

National: RNC cuts ties to firm after voter fraud allegations | latimes.com

The Republican National Committee has abruptly cut ties to a consulting firm hired for get-out-the-vote efforts in seven presidential election swing states after Florida prosecutors launched an investigation into possible fraud in voter registration forms. Working through state parties, the RNC has sent more than $3.1 million this year to Strategic Allied Consulting, a company formed in June by Nathan Sproul, an Arizona voting consultant. Sproul has operated other firms that have been accused in past elections of improprieties designed to help Republican candidates, including dumping registration forms filled out by Democrats, but none of those allegations led to any criminal charges.

Florida: Suspicious voter registration forms found in 10 Florida counties | latimes.com

Florida elections officials said Friday that at least 10 counties have identified suspicious and possibly fraudulent voter registration forms turned in by a firm working for the Republican Party of Florida, which has filed an election fraud complaint with the state Division of Elections against its one-time consultant. The controversy in Florida — which began with possibly fraudulent forms that first cropped up in Palm Beach County —  has engulfed the Republican National Committee, which admitted Thursday that it urged state parties in seven swing states to hire the firm, Strategic Allied Consulting.The RNC paid the company at least $3.1 million — routed through the state parties of Florida, Nevada, Colorado, North Carolina and Virginia — to register voters and run get-out-the-vote operations. Wisconsin and Ohio had not yet paid the firm for get-out-the-vote operations it was contracted to do.

Florida: Voter registration problems widening in Florida | Yahoo! News

What first appeared to be an isolated problem in one Florida county has now spread statewide, with election officials in nine counties informing prosecutors or state election officials about questionable voter registration forms filled out on behalf of the Republican Party of Florida. State Republican officials already have fired the vendor it had hired to register voters, and took the additional step of filing an election fraud complaint against the company, Strategic Allied Consulting, with state officials. That complaint was handed over Friday to state law-enforcement authorities. A spokesman for Florida’s GOP said the matter was being treated seriously. “We are doing what we can to find out how broad the scope is,” said Brian Burgess, the spokesman. Florida is the battleground state where past election problems led to the chaotic recount that followed the 2000 presidential election.

National: GOP’s ACORN moment | Salon.com

There are still plenty of conservatives who think ACORN stole the 2008 election for Obama and will do it again this year. ACORN was everywhere four years ago. Even John McCain, late in his campaign and desperate to land a blow on Obama, ranan ad tying his challenger to the community-organizing group before saying in the final debate that ACORN “is now on the verge of maybe perpetrating one of the greatest frauds in voter history in this country, maybe destroying the fabric of democracy.” How did ACORN steal the election? A number of the group’s paid canvassers had been caught submitting false voter registration forms in a handful of states, using the names of dead people or false addresses, in order to avoid working. Four years later, ACORN is dead, and a Republican firm contracted by the Republican National Committee has adopted its shady tactics. But, so far at least, there’s been hardly a peep from the same conservatives who seized on ACORN about one of their own engaging in almost identical fraudulent tactics. Prosecutors in Florida are looking into alleged voter registration fraud conducted by employees of Strategic Allied Consulting, which the RNC and state parties hired in at least five states. TheRNC has now cut ties with the firm after news broke that its employees had registered dead people and listed the addresses of a Land Rover dealership and other non-residences on registration forms. Paul Lux, the Republican supervisor of elections in Okaloosa County, Fla., who first brought the suspect registration forms to the attention of prosecutors, said as many as one in three were questionable. “It’s kind of ironic that the dead people they accused ACORN of registering are now being done by the RPOF [Republican Party of Florida],” Lux said.

Florida: GOP fires consulting firm after 108 questionable voter registrations in Palm Beach County | The Washington Post

Republicans on Thursday fired a vendor suspected of submitting 108 questionable new voter registrations in Florida’s Palm Beach County, ground zero for disputed ballots in 2000’s presidential race. The Republican Party of Florida used Virginia-based Strategic Allied Consulting to help register and turnout voters in Florida, one of a shrinking handful of states President Barack Obama and Republican challenger Mitt Romney are contesting. The Florida state party had paid the firm more than $1.3 million so far, and the Republican National Committee used the group for almost $3 million of work in Nevada, North Carolina, Colorado and Virginia.