South Carolina, North Carolina and other states where Republican and tea party activists have tried to find (or concoct?) evidence of voter fraud have shown that the voter rolls are clean and there has been no “fraud.”
And now — guess what! — a clear case of voting fraud has surfaced in Florida, among other states. The political party behind the destruction of voter registrations? The Republican party. One eerie site of the current fraud? Palm Beach county, where in 2000 Republican toughs banged on doors and tried to stop the Bush/Gore recount. Now the hired alleged fraudsters are found to have been working for Romney.
[Editor’s Update: The newest development is as the stories cited below came to light in the media the GOP has fired the firm. Go to the link to read the full details in the AP story. In Florida, the company says all of the problems stemmed from one person who has since been fired and that they’re cooperating with state officials in any inquiry]
The Palm Beach Post report last night that a Florida Republican Party contractor turned in at least 106 “questionable” registration firms, with “similar signatures” and wrong addresses, doesn’t seem like a national news story. But it has unwoven a somewhat concealed effort by Republicans in several states to deploy a firm with an ugly history of allegedly destroying Democratic voter registration forms and other acts of fraud.
The contractor in Florida is called Strategic Allied Consulting, a business entity created a few months ago and registered online by a former Arizona Republican Party director named Nathan Sproul.
Sproul, a consultant based in Tempe, is infamous for accusations that his firms have committed fraud by tampering with Democratic voter registration forms and suppressing votes. Sproul was hired by the Romney campaign for a period of five months that began last November and ended in March. But now there’s evidence that the payments continued, only to a different name. …The Nation
Sproul been hard at work in Nevada, too, and North Carolina. In fact, they’ve been alleged to have been active Republican vote tamperers for years.
John Kerry, Ted Kennedy, and others tried over the years to investigate this company but Bush’s Department of Justice stonewalled. In 2006, the Sproul family were invited to the White House at Christmas. They’re very, um, loyal Republicans.
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 political consultant. Sproul has operated other firms that have been accused in the past of improprieties designed to help Republican candidates, including dumping registration forms filled out by Democrats. None of those allegations have led to criminal charges.
Strategic Allied Consulting was hired to do voter registration drives in Florida, Virginia, Colorado, North Carolina and Nevada, and had been planning get-out-the-vote drives in Ohio and Wisconsin, according to Sproul. Lincoln Strategy Group, another Sproul company, was paid about $70,000 by Mitt Romney’s campaign during the primaries to gather signatures.
In Florida’s Palm Beach County, election officials turned over 106 forms to prosecutors after discovering forgeries and other problems. Officials in other counties are now reviewing voter registration forms turned in by the state GOP.
Sproul said he created Strategic Allied Consulting at the RNC’s request because the party wanted to avoid being publicly linked to the past allegations. The firm was set up at a Virginia address, and Sproul does not show up on the corporate paperwork. …LA Times
It’s a good thing evidence of persistent Republican efforts to skew the vote is finally coming out. But — have you noticed? — no one seems particularly surprised.
Cross posted from Prairie Weather
[UPDATE : To see the extent of allegations of partisan voter suppression just go to THIS GOOGLE NEWS LINK and read all the stories. Now go to THIS GOOGLE WEB link and read these which also give links to its history of use.]
UPDATE II: LA Times story:
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.
Sean Spicer, spokesman for the RNC, said the party, has “zero tolerance” for voter fraud and cut ties to the firm on Wednesday, urging state parties to do the same. The forms in question in Florida were all submitted by one worker and were not the result of an effort to suppress votes, he said.
“If you don’t do it right, it doesn’t assist us in any way,” he said.“When the allegations yesterday were brought to our attention, we severed our relationship. We acted swiftly and boldly.”
Strategic Allied Consulting was hired to do voter registration drives in Florida, Virginia, Colorado, North Carolina and Nevada, and had been planning get-out-the-vote drives in Ohio and Wisconsin, according to Sproul.