Posted by AzBlueMeanie:
The Washington Post reports today that the probe into GOP voter suppression specialist Nathan Sproul has expanded into voter registration fraud. Va. probe of dumped voter registration forms broadens:
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.
State authorities are seeking to learn whether any of Small’s
supervisors instructed him or any of his 40 co-workers in Virginia to
ask potential voters about their political leanings during registration
drives, the two sources said. Asking such questions could be a violation
of state election law.
* * *
Sproul’s firms and political consulting operations have faced
questions over the past eight years, including investigations and formal
charges of suppressing Democratic votes, destroying voter registrations
and other election violations. The charges against Small came a month
after voter registration work by a Sproul company prompted a fraud investigation in Florida.
Nine
Florida counties reported in September that hundreds of voter
registration forms submitted by Sproul’s firm contained irregularities
such as suspicious, conflicting signatures and missing information.
* * *
After the Florida investigation became public, the Republican National Committee said it was severing ties
with Strategic Allied Consulting. At that time, Strategic stopped
overseeing registration workers in Virginia and Pinpoint, Strategic’s
staffing contractor, began overseeing the work.
Investigators
have gathered information showing that Small asserted that he worked for
Strategic to voters, according to two persons close to the probe.
