Heee’s baack! Nathan Sproul implicated in California voter registration fraud

Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

I first told you about this Republican voter registration fraud back in October 2008 (you should read the whole post). GOP voter registration fraud: Mark Jacoby arrested, Nathan Sproul under investigation (again).

Well this dynamic duo of Republican voter registration fraud are back in the news (again).

Justin Elliot of talkingpointsmemo.com posted this Report: CA Voters Tricked Into Registering As Republicans With Pot Petition:

Orange County authorities are launching an investigation into possible voter registration fraud after a local newspaper reported over a hundred cases of voters being tricked into registering as Republicans by petitioners who asked them to sign petitions for, among other causes, legalizing pot.

The Orange County Register reported last week that the Orange County District Attorney's office announced it would team up with the Secretary of State on the case, following a Register report that 99 written complaints were filed since March by voters who said they were registered as Republicans without their consent.

Another 74 voters reached by the Register said they, too, were unwillingly made members of the GOP.

In a lengthy investigation published earlier this month, the paper pointed to an $8 "bounty" offered by the California Republican Party for each new registration as a cause for the problems. It identified multiple petitioners who work for vendors "with ties to the California Republican Party." Back in 2006, a similar scandal led to the convictions of several petitioners.

The Register explains how it went down this time around:

Some voters told the Register they specifically remember marking themselves as something other than a Republican. Others say the petitioner told them they had to check Republican in order for their signature to count, or because Republicans were sponsoring their signature gathering or for some other vaguely official-sounding reason.

In some cases, voters were told marking Republican didn't change their actual voter registration. Others were told they could always change back. A few even said they didn't know they were signing official documents of any kind – they said the signature gatherers made off like they were students, collecting signatures for a class project.

Democrats have called on the U.S. Attorney to investigate.

Read the Register's original story in full here.

Wait for it. Today, karoli at crooksandliars.com implicates our dynamic duo in this California voter registration fraud case in this post How Republicans buy voters. And votes:

Mark Jacoby aka Star Petition Services is still going strong here in California, and he's operating in a fashion true to the form that got him a smack on the wrist and 30 days of CalTrans service last year, but he's not the only one. Why isn't anyone outraged about this?

Since I first wrote about Jacoby and his bogus voter slamming, the Orange County Register has gone digging. Guess what they found? Yep, more evidence of a focused effort to use the petition to add a marijuana legalization initiative as a pathway to add more voters to Republican Party rolls.

Since mid-March, at least 99 written complaints have been submitted to state elections officials by Orange County residents who say they were registered to vote Republican without their consent. The Register found an additional 74 voters who said they were duped or coerced into registering to vote as a Republican by signature gatherers who initially asked them to sign petitions for causes like legalizing marijuana, fighting cancer or cleaning up beaches.

California Democrats are calling on the US Attorney to investigate, as they should. The very same people who demonized ACORN and accused them of voter fraud are the ones actually committing voter fraud for $8 bucks per registration.

Their scheme is pretty simple. They approach people about to enter a WalMart or Target store and ask them to sign a petition to put the marijuana legalization measure on the ballot. When someone agrees to sign the petition, they also ask them to fill out a voter registration card just to make sure their current address is correct in Sacramento. What they fail to disclose, and what most people don't notice, is that they've just signed a card changing their party affiliation to the Republican party.

From December 2009 through March 2010, the California Republican Party paid Grassroots Outreach, LLC nearly $675,000 for "voter registration services".

Who is Grassroots Outreach, LLC?

The California Corporations database indicates that Grassroots Outreach, LLC: established in California on June 11, 2008 via a third-party registration agent, C T Corporation System. C T Corporation System is also the agent for legal process. The registered address is 1232 Q St., Sacramento, CA 95811. The third-party registrant leaves the true ownership in question, but follow along with me anyway.

Nathan Sproul, a Republican political operative with a long and storied history of voter suppression and voter fraud accusations, has an Arizona company called Sproul Grassroots Mobilization, LLC. The mailing address is 80 E Rio Salado Pkwy #814, Tempe, AZ.

On June 18, 2009 the Golden State Voter Registration Project paid $50,000 to Grassroots Outreach, LLC. The address on the check was 80 E. Rio Salado Parkway, Suite 814, Tempe, AZ 85281, and the stated purpose for the payment was "voter registration services." The reported mailing address is Nathan Sproul's office, and the registered address for Sproul Grassroots Mobilization, LLC. (More on the Golden State Voter Registration Project donors and expenses here.)

The mailing address for the California payment to Grassroots Mobilization LLC is 1317 N. San Fernando Blvd, #175, Burbank, CA 91504. That address is a Pak-N-Ship store with a post office box rental service. The main offices of the California Republican Party are located about six blocks down at 1903 W. Magnolia Blvd, Burbank, CA 91506.

If we had access to corporate records, I'd be willing to bet we could draw a straight, clear, unquestionable line between Star Petition Services and Grassroots Outreach, LLC. After all, Jacoby and Sproul have a long history of doing business together.

California's politics are being run off the rail by this kind of activity. The initiative process is completely broken because Republicans are willing to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars to put signatures they bought on ballot initiative petitions and voter registration cards. We seriously cannot afford to let this go unnoticed if we ever hope to have elections that truly are fair and free.

There are a number of paid petitions circulating in Arizona presently. Has anyone in the Arizona media, law enforcement, and those parties responsible for election integrity, i.e., the Secretary of State and County Recorders (in most instances) investigated to determine whether this dynamic duo of Republican voter registration fraud is circulating paid petitions and similarly working this fraud in Arizona? (Sproul was implicated in the destruction of voter registrations in Arizona in 2004).

This sonuvabitch has been investigated numerous times over the years, but was always protected by the Bush Injustice Department. His partner in crime Mark Jacoby was even arrested for it in October 2008, and only got a slap on the wrist. Here they are again, back in business, perpetrating the same Republican voter registration fraud.

When the hell is law enforcement going to treat this as the serious crime that it is and prosecute this dynamic duo? And when the hell is the Republican Party going to receive the same scrutiny as ACORN?

I would like to know what the candidates for Arizona Secretary of State have to say about Nathan Sproul and his operation of Republican voter registration fraud.