It’s an election year, so it must be time for another Nathan Sproul voting fraud scandal

Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

I posted a detailed account of the illegal voting fraud scandals perpetrated by the GOP's voter suppression specialist, Arizona's own Nathan Sproul, back in 2008. GOP voter registration fraud: Mark Jacoby arrested, Nathan Sproul under investigation (again) (snippets):

Arizona's very own renowned GOP voter suppression specialist, Nathan Sproul, is back in the news. Those of us in the election integrity community have been pursuing this evil GOP bastard for years (here's a brief summary of his activites in the 2004 election (Team Bush Paid Millions to Nathan Sproul–and Tried to Hide It | BaltimoreChronicle.com), but he has been protected by the Bush "injustice" department (possibly tied to the U.S. Attorney Gate scandal, hmmm?), and the Arizona McMedia who will not investigate or report about his misdeeds because Sproul does consulting work for the McCain campaign (and many other Arizona Republicans).  Here are a number of BRAD BLOG reports on Sproul & Associates (now known as Lincoln Strategy). (A shout out to Brad Friedman!)

CNN affiliate KLAS-TV in Las Vegas reported that "Federal, state, and local officials are gathering information about allegations of voter registration fraud that were first raised by Channel 8 Eyewitness News." Las Vegas Now | Investigation into Trashed Voter Registrations:

On Tuesday afternoon, Las Vegan Eric Russell and his girlfriend took a packet of documents to the Las Vegas FBI office but left before filing a formal complaint about what Russell says was a deliberate effort to disenfranchise local voters.

Russell worked for a company called Voters Outreach of America, along with 300 other people. He says he got into a beef with the company over a pay dispute, and witnessed his bosses ripping up registration forms that had been filed by Democrats.

"They were thrown away in the trash. I grabbed them out," said Eric Russell.

* * *

In Oregon, the same company that was operating here has been criticized for its tactics in signing up voters. There, it used the name America Votes, which is actually the name of a Democratic organization.

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The Campaign Legal Center provides additional background. "This company  was hired directly by the Republican National Committee.  Identical allegations were made against this company in Pennsylvania in 2004."

– Sproul's role in voter registration drives this month triggered official investigations in several other states with canvassers alleging they had been told to discard Democratic voter registration forms, leaving voters who thought they had registered off the rolls.

– The firm has a contract with the Republican National Committee to register new voters and has operated using the name Voters Outreach of America.  Sproul's chairman, Nathan Sproul, is a former executive director of the Arizona Republican Party.

– Voters Outreach of America is also under investigation in Oregon for "alteration and destruction of voter registration cards," said Anne Martens, a spokeswoman for Oregon Secretary of State Bill Bradbury.

– The FBI and local election officals are inverstigating the allegations.

"Mr. Voter Suppression" was back with a voting fraud scandal again in 2010. Heee's baack! Nathan Sproul implicated in California voter registration fraud.

It's an election year, so it must be time for another Nathan Sproul voting fraud scandal. Michael Isikoff writes, RNC cuts ties with firm over voter fraud allegations – First Read:

Election officials in six Florida counties are investigating what appears to be "hundreds” of cases of suspected voter fraud by a GOP consulting firm that has been paid nearly $3 million by the Republican National Committee to register Republican voters in five key battleground states, state officials tell NBC.

But the veteran GOP consultant, Nathan Sproul, who runs the firm, strongly defended his company's conduct, saying it has rigorous "quality controls" and blamed the alleged fraud on the actions of a few "bad apples," workers who were hired to register Republican voters for $12 an hour and then tried to "cheat the system." 

The allegations of suspected voter fraud committed by Strategic Allied Consulting of Tempe, Arizona spread Thursday to counties throughout Florida. At the same time, the Republican National Committee said it had severed its ties to the firm altogether.

"We have heard from supervisors in six counties that they have irregularities in voter registration," said Chris Cate, spokesman for the Florida Department of State, which oversees the state's division of elections.  Although local prosecutors are already investigating the firm's conduct, Cate said state officials were also considering turning the matter over to the Florida Department of Law Enforcement to determine if there was a pattern of misconduct.

The suspected fraud included apparent cases of dead people being registered as Republican voters, said Paul Lux, the supervisor of elections in Okaloosa County and a Republican. He compared the suspected fraud to the alleged acts of ACORN, the liberal activist group that became the center of a national controversy several years ago.

In addition to Palm Beach County, where election officials initially reported 106 instances of suspected fraudulent registration forms, officials in Okaloosa, Pasco, Santa Rosa, Lee and Clay counties have also reported instances of possible fraudulent forms submitted by the firm, officials said.

* * *

Sproul, who has long worked for the GOP, also criticized Florida and national Republican officials for dumping him.

"They're trying to get the distraction behind them," he said about the RNC's action. 

Sean Spicer, communications director for the RNC, said Strategic Allied Consulting had been retained by the RNC and state Republican parties to register new Republican voters in five key battleground states.

But Spicer said that the party's relationship with the firm– which has been paid $2.9 million by the RNC so far this year, according to federal elections records – has now been terminated in light of alleged voter fraud linked to one of the firm's employees that was reported this week to Florida prosecutors by election officials in Palm Beach County. 

"We've made it clear we're not doing business with these guys anymore," said Spicer.  "We've come out pretty strong against this kind of stuff — and we have zero tolerance for this."

[Note to Arizona's McMedia: Please verify that Nathan Sproul has been cut off from the GOP — I seriously doubt it.]

Strategic Allied’s parent firm, Lincoln Strategy Group, also headed by Sproul, has been paid about $80,000 by the Romney campaign to conduct "field consulting," according to election records. Asked for comment, Sarah Pompei, a spokeswoman for the Romney campaign, said by email:  "We used this vendor for signature gathering services during the primary but have not used them since 2011."

Besides Florida, Strategic Allied Consulting was hired to register GOP voters in Nevada, North Carolina, Colorado and Virginia. Spicer said it was the only firm hired by the RNC to conduct voter registration. In the case of Nevada, he said, the RNC was paying the firm directly. In the other four states, the firm was being paid by state parties with the funds reimbursed by the RNC. 

* * *

[T]the new dispute over what happened in Palm Beach–  involving the registration of Republican voters — appears to be one of the first to have led to a criminal inquiry in this year's election.

Christine Weiss, a spokeswoman for the Palm Beach State Attorney's Office, told NBC News Thursday that the alleged voter fraud by a Strategic Allied Consulting employee is "currently being investigated" by prosecutors in her office after it was brought to the attention of prosecutors on Monday by Palm Beach election supervisor Susan Bucher.

* * *

In a statement issued Tuesday night, Mike Grissom, executive director of the Florida Republican Party, said: "When we learned today about the instances of potential voter registration fraud that occurred in Palm Beach County, we immediately informed the Republican National Committee that we were terminating the contract with the voter registration vendor we hired at their request because there is no place for voter registration fraud in Florida."

Sproul has been previously accused of suppressing Democratic voter turnout, throwing away registration forms, and manipulating ballot initiatives. His firms — formerly Sproul & Associates, Lincoln Strategy, and Strategic Allied Consultants — had previously worked for RNC voter registration efforts during the campaigns of George W. Bush and John McCain. In 2004, Democratic Senators Leahy and Kennedy sent a letter to then Attorney General John Ashcroft requesting that he "launch an immediate investigation into the activities of Mr. Sproul and his firm." But the request did not lead to any criminal charges against Sproul. 

In point of fact, from my post in 2008:

[T]here has been a wide array of public complaint over the scope and nefariousness of his activities. Sens. Patrick Leahy and Ted Kennedy sent a letter to Attorney General John Ashcroft in 2004 asking that the Justice Department "launch an immediate investigation into the activities of Mr. Sproul and his firm." Three years later, members of Congress still weren't satisfied. Rep. Conyers complained in an Oct. 2007 letter that the Justice Department was not closely scrutinizing Sproul's efforts. "The alleged misconduct described by many witnesses," he wrote, "clearly suppress[es] votes and violate[s] the law."

Michael Isikoff discussed the investigation this morning on The Daily Rundown with Chuck Todd.

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