Why is it that when legitimate examples of election fraud come to light, they always seem to come from one party?
The Republican National Committee has fired a controversial consulting firm it was paying millions of dollars to conduct voter registration in five battleground states, NBC News has learned.
The move came after the Palm Beach County, Fla., elections supervisor discovered 108 potentially fraudulent registration forms submitted by the GOP consulting firm, including suspected phony signatures and home addresses that matched those of a gas station, a medical building and a Land Rover dealership.
NBC News has learned that two other Florida counties, Santa Rosa and Okaloosa, have also reported possible fraudulent registration forms submitted by the firm, including apparent dead people being registered as new voters.
As NBC News' Michael Isikoff reported, at issue is a firm called Strategic Allied Consulting, but by long-time consultant Nathan Sproul, which had been hired by the Republican National Committee's Sean Spicer to register voters in Florida, Nevada, North Carolina, Colorado, and Virginia -- five key battleground states in 2012.
So far in 2012, the RNC has paid Strategic Allied Consulting $2.9 million for its services to the national party, as well as state affiliates. The relationship, however, has been severed in light of the firm's alleged crimes.
So, to review the larger context, the Republican National Committee was apoplectic in accusing groups like ACORN of overseeing fraudulent voter-registration efforts, and at the same time, the Republican National Committee paid millions to a Republican firm that's accused of overseeing fraudulent voter-registration efforts.
A Republican elections supervisor in the Florida panhandle said, "It's kind of ironic that the dead people they accused ACORN of registering are now being done by the [Republican Party of Florida]."
Yes, actually, it is kind of ironic.
But wait, it gets worse.
Nathan Sproul, who was also hired by the Romney campaign to help with "field consulting," is not new to controversy. On the contrary, Sproul had already been accused of massive voter registration fraud in several states, long before the 2012 cycle.
According to campaign finance records, a joint committee of the McCain-Palin campaign, the RNC and the California Republican Party, made a $175,000 payment to the group Lincoln Strategy in June for purposes of "registering voters." The managing partner of that firm is Nathan Sproul, a renowned GOP operative who has been investigated on multiple occasions for suppressing Democratic voter turnout, throwing away registration forms and even spearheading efforts to get Ralph Nader on ballots to hinder the Democratic ticket.
In a letter to the Justice Department last October, House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers said that that Sproul's alleged activities "clearly suppress votes and violate the law."
That Sproul would come under the employment umbrella of the McCain campaign -- the Republican National Committee has also separately paid Lincoln Strategy at least $37,000 for voter registration efforts this cycle -- is not terribly surprising. Sproul, who has donated nearly $30,000 to McCain's campaign, has been in the good graces of GOP officials for the past decade despite charges of ethical and potentially legal wrongdoing.
Rep. Chris Cannon, a Utah Republican, once said, "The difference between ACORN and Sproul is that ACORN doesn't throw away or change registration documents after they have been filled out."
Despite this history, the Republican National Committee and the Romney campaign signed Sproul firms to lucrative contracts.
Yesterday, the RNC's Sean Spicer boasted, "We acted swiftly and boldly" after learning of the alleged improprieties. But before Spicer strains himself patting his back, perhaps he can explain why Republicans partnered with Sproul's firms in the first place despite his controversial past?
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Mike Rowe talks about his father being a history teacher and apparently, Mike Rowe has learned very few lessons from history. If that is all Mike Rowe can talk about with history is booze he can keep his talk show and go away. Mike Rowe’s siding with Romney’s values has to show his biggest stupidity yet. For Mike Rowe it is really to question with all that history he talks about what has he even really learned other than how to show flashy scenes of nonsense.
I wondered what the heck you were talking about but then googled it. It's a pity that it seems like Mike Rowe doesn't realize that Romney has no respect for manual labor jobs at all and anything he might say about them would be a complete lie. Romney's words are worth less than hagfish snot.
I'm sick and tired of everybody demeaning the good name of hagfish snot by associated hagfish snot with unrepentent douchebags.
Hagfish snot may save your life some day, with its mysterious properties.
You cannot say the same about Romney and his mysterious Mormon properties.
I have to jump in here at the beginning. I just scrolled to the very end ...
Shooter ? Shooter? Where are you boy . Woof Woof Here boy...Here boy... Voter Fraud story! Voter Fraud story! I thought you liked voter fraud stories....
"...perhaps he can explain why Republicans partnered with Sproul's firms in the first place despite his controversial past?"
Because he's a rethugniCon, and that's all they needed to hear. And if those "libruls" in the elections offices had just minded their own business we could have gotten away with it all!
Zora; they have been using the same people for years........
So, basically, they have been cheating and breaking the law for years. Figures.
Lesman - my comment was meant as snark....Not an indictment of the elections officials...
Money is the root of all evil. Amen.
Let's be precise. The <i>love</i> of money is the root of all evil.
Just a small correction: The love of money is the root of all evil. Used properly, money can be very beneficial.
I've always liked the Latin version, which is wonderfully ominous: radix enim omnium malorum est cupiditas.
I also see that the Greek word for "love of money" is philarguria, which literally means "love of silver." I also see that in modern English, the word argyria (accent on the second syllable) refers to an illness caused by excessive ingestion of silver. It makes your skin turn blue/grey.
There's probably some moral in there, someplace.
Money is not the root of all evil. Neither is love of money. Man is the root of all evil. Without man there would be no evil. I know, bad hagish.
"An OUTrage! And, after his contract expires in 2016, we will NOT be renewing it! Harrumph."
Nope. Another brand-new contract with a brand-new LLC. Same guy of course.
Because the defining psychological characteristic of the modern Republican is projection, the constant baseless insistence that the Democrats will do, are doing or have already done something awful which the the Republican is thus entitled to do in an even more egregious manner than whatever he falsely accused the Democrats of doing. If you want to know what a Republican is going to do tomorrow, look at what he falsely accused a Democrat of doing yesterday.
DING DING DING!!! We HAAVE a WINN-UH!!!!
Any time the Republicans make an allegation against the Democrats, you can be sure that they are doing the thing they are accusing the Dems of.
This explains why they are challenging the lack of dorm room numbers for college student registrations in Ohio.
Because using dorm addresses would be a lot better than gas stations, so that is totalling something that the Repubs would do. If they would do it, they assume the other side is doing it.
Before it was called projection, GBS nailed a portion of it:
There was another variation in one of the Discworld novels by Terry Pratchett and/or in Jack Whyte's Camulod series.
That really hit the heart of the matter for me. Good people tend to see good in others and evil people are always looking out for the evil coming their way. Wicca's Threefold Law and Shakespeare's Protesting Lady who doth do it too much also touch on this insight.
Not that Republicans are inherently evil, but it takes a dark heart to listen to Rush Limbaugh or read Ayn Rand and go along with the constant liberals are lazy moochers theme.
No wonder the GOP sees voter fraud around every corner - they're paying to make it happen!
Is there a goose and a gander somewhere in this story? For Petes sake, the man is running for office, he can't have illegals going around blowing leaves and registering voters...
Gosh Sean, if acting "swiftly and boldly" means letting this scum try to supress the vote since 2004, then you must be one of the ones that said a 'majority' of 100 is 60 (senate).
I believe the subtext of the above sentence is: "We acted swiftly and boldly" after learning
ofthe alleged improprieties were on the news.Damn Republicant community organizers! I think that they have an 'accorn' stuck in theirs mouth......
their teeth where it's stuck...?
one more detail via the la times
Sproul said he created Strategic Allied Consulting at the request of the Republican National Committee because of the bad publicity stemming from the past allegations.
“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.
--------------------------
false information apparently means "despite all the evidence of our wrongdoing, we never got charged with any crimes."
http://www.latimes.com/news/politics/la-pn-republicans-voter-fraud-florida-20120927,0,5472858.story
GOP internal mantra: "If you ain't cheatin', you ain't tryin'!"
Learned that one from the race car owners.
I have to wonder though, whether there was any plan for people to try to actually vote using these fraudulent registrations. Rather, I think that this SAC group was scamming the GOP by inflating their registration tally.
The far worse foul, actually, would be throwing away registrations. Then folks think they are registered and they aren't. They never get their little postcard from the board of elections, but they might not realize they are supposed to get one.
There's a question. Florida has been bragging about its very high republican registration rate.
The DOJ needs to conduct an investigatin on the RNC in regards to this election cycle. In addition, during November 6th election a group known as True to Vote plan on observing polls. This is a tea party afflilited group and the potential of using harassment or intimidation tactics could be used. Once again an another area in which the DOJ might have to work with local authorities and state/county boards of election to insure such tactics are not being utilized. If so, those behaving in such manner should be held accountable to the fullest extend of law.
now you forgot to mention that all those new "Voter ID" laws were not needed to make this illegal, and did not result in the discovery of this fraud
So how many elections in a row do they get to be shocked and appalled to discover that this Sproul fellow they've shoveled huge piles of cash to is a criminal scumbag? Do they still get to be shocked when he turns out to be behind the front companies they asked him to set up?
But it must be nice to be able to break the law in states where you know your gang controls the courts so there's no chance you'll be indicted.
Indeed, the more I think about it, the more it seems like Republicans are doing this whole "voter fraud" thing the way criminal enterprises did during prohibition--one gang buys out the courts and the legislatures and then uses them to put the competition out of business.
Of course this only scratches the surface. There is the outright purchase of some of elections supervisors, and perhaps even worse when they can't get what they want, which has been going on for years here. Read about all of it in my book Rick Scott: Enemy of the State found on Amazon
More evidence of how corrupt the Republicans are, now we know how Bush won Florida. No wonder there was so much attention being devoted to voter fraud, the Republicans have been doing it for a long time.
This is kind of like all those "self-reighteous" ones skulking about looking for all those "moral rule" breakers. They know they are there. They know they are breaking the rules and they know where to find them...in the mirror. All that concern about "voting irregularities" and no evidence amounting to squat. All those legislatures trying to prevent all those irregularities. They knew they were there because they were paying a group to do it...right there in their own mirrors.
Any American caught subverting the US electoral system should be deported to Russia and live under their leaders' idea of elections.
wait! that wouldn't be illegal would it? I think they would have to try to make elections fare if they were in Russia in order to be accused of illegal activity wouldn't they?
I just checked the Constitution, and nowhere in there does it say you lose your right to vote just because you're dead!!
ARISE AND VOTE MY ANCESTORS!!!
ZOMBIE LIBERATION FRONT
Oh, and none of my Zombie friends are Democrats. They say that no Repuglicans have any brains to eat.
It maybe an oversimplification, but it is beginning to fit like a well made glove - when it comes to all the whining these Republicans foist upon the rest of us regarding malevolent conspiracies - it takes one to know one! -Kevo
ATTN:
Late last year, Mitt Romney’s presidential campaign began paying Nathan Sproul, a political consultant with a long history of destroying Democratic voter registration forms and manipulating ballot initiatives. Sproul, who changed his firm’s name from Sproul and Associates to Lincoln Strategies, has received over $70,000 from Romney’s campaign
...
Republic Report reviewed disclosures from the Federal Elections Commission. Sproul’s Lincoln Strategy Group has received about $71,391 in payments for “field consulting” and “rent & utilities” by the Romney for President Inc. committee from November 30th through March 2nd of this year.
http://www.republicreport.org/2012/romney-nathan-sproul/
Also see:
http://www.bradblog.com/?p=9586
Please-- many of us don't read all BF posts.
Control your enthusiasm.
Nixon, party of one, your table is ready.
Maybe this is why repubs have a problem with educating the poor. The more literate we become, the harder they have to work to stop us from being a part of the laws governing us. The old hat tricks are not working any more. Actually they should think us for forcing their kids to get more than a network from those $300,000 educations.
There's scientific evidence this is true. Losing your faith is not limited to religious faith.
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=losing-your-religion-analytic-thinking-can-undermine-belief
GOP hypocrisy? How shocking! To quote Bill Clinton, “It takes some brass to attack a guy for doing what you did."