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Republican Party Paid $3.1 Million to Firm Under Investigation for Voter Registration Fraud
Think Progress / News Report
Published: Saturday 29 September 2012
The firm’s founder, Nathan Sproul, is a longtime Republican strategist whose reputation was tarred by widespread accusations of voter registration fraud and attempts to suppress Democratic voter turnout.
The Republican National Committee is cutting ties to Strategic Allied Consulting, a voter registration firm under investigation for turning in fraudulent voter registration forms in Florida. The RNC hired the firm to do voter registration drives for $3.1 million this year.
The firm’s founder, Nathan Sproul, is a longtime Republican strategist whose reputation was tarred by widespread accusations of voter registration fraud and attempts to suppress Democratic voter turnout. George W. Bush’s campaign reportedly paid Sproul over $8 million for his work in the 2004 election. Sproul, now under new scrutiny, claims he started Strategic Allied Consulting because the RNC wanted to hide his past:
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.
“In order to be able to do the job that the state parties were hiring us to do, the [RNC] asked us to do it with a different company’s name, so as to not be a distraction from the false information put out in the Internet,” Sproul said.
The committee is now scrambling to distance itself from Sproul after Florida launched a criminal investigation into the company. Strategic Allied Consulting submitted 106 “questionable” voter registration forms to the Palm Beach County Supervisor of Elections, and several other counties have discovered fraudulent forms as well. The Florida GOP fired the firm on Tuesday night.
Republicans have launched relentless efforts to prevent in-person voter fraud, which is exceptionally rare, yet seem to have ignored the real threat of voter registration fraud by their own consultant. In a twist one Florida Supervisor of Elections called “ironic,” Sproul’s organization was in fact registering dead voters as Republicans, even as Republican lawmakers all over the country justified discriminatory voter purges with the threat of dead voters showing up to the polls.
7 comments on "Republican Party Paid $3.1 Million to Firm Under Investigation for Voter Registration Fraud"
September 29, 2012 7:06pm
The Liberals and/or Democrats are yelling, it's just that mainstream media hides this stuff. Hard to get information out unless you're from the right. There is a lot of noise on the internet and on Liberal radio and TV, but the right wing outnumbers us 99-1, so we tend to get drowned out. I'd like to hear Obama come out with it and do an FDR. If the GOP had good intentions for the majority of people they would have laid out their plans, but they don't and I get normally reasonable people who listen to Limbaugh, (and then suggest I should too) and watch Fox News. And then dare to call me brainwashed. I just tell them if I watched or listened to them I'd be way too busy with all the fact checking.
September 29, 2012 6:15pm
Where's the outcry from the liberals and demand that these folks be put out of business and the repugnants indicted. Eye for an eye. They destroyed ACORN
September 29, 2012 2:40pm
Desperate is as desperate does. They're looking at a potential landslide loss at all levels after picking Romney as their national face.
Don't relax until after November 6th. Get out and vote, take others with you.
September 29, 2012 2:30pm
Wait, guys and gals, I'm confused. I thought Republicans were trying to protect us from voter fraud? I'm so bewildered that Republicans would do such a thing.
Maybe "liberal" isn't as bad a word as "Republican" after all. Who knew?
September 29, 2012 2:06pm
Lie, Cheat, Steal, & Kill -- the Republican way.
September 29, 2012 12:15pm
Republicans are Liars, Cheats and Thieves. If they weren't in the pocket of the super rich, they could be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. But since they are they will probably get a little slap on the wrist and give the prosecutor a scape goat to take a small fall. Bullshit like this make me sad to call myself an american. When the right were yelling in the 60's and 70's "America Love it or Leave It", I thought we should stick together united. I wish I had moved.
September 29, 2012 11:15am
How sad that the GOP has to resort to such tactics. The guilty parties should all have to pay a hefty penalty for undermining our democracy.
Mitt Romney does not deserve our trust and should explain why he and his party have stooped so low.