'Republicans Play Defense Over Voter Registration Fraud'

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Republicans play defense over voter registration fraud
BY MARC CAPUTO - Miami Herald
9/30/12

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President Barack Obama has received unexpected help from the unlikeliest of quarters: The Republican National Committee.
 
Devoted to bashing Obama, the RNC gave the president’s reelection campaign a political contribution of sorts by insisting that state parties, such as Florida’s, hire a vendor that’s now under investigation for voter-registration fraud by the Florida Department of Law Enforcement in as many as 10 counties involving at least 220 suspect forms.
 
Remember all that talk from Republicans about voter fraud?

Well, it ain’t just for ACORN anymore.

Now, instead of being on offense against Obama, Republicans are playing defense over voter-registration fraud. Some organized Republican voter-registration drives have virtually ground to a halt as Republicans fired the firm, Strategic Allied Consulting, in seven battleground states.
 
It’s such a mess that the Republican Party of Florida has filed an elections complaint against the Strategic Allied Consulting, which then turned around and bashed…. The Republican Party of Florida.
 
“When the Republican Party of Florida chose to make likely libelous comments about our effort and stated that the Republican National Committee suggested us as the vendor, the RNC was put in the unenviable position of ending a long-term relationship for the sake of staying focused on the election,” a company statement said this week. “While we wish their comments yesterday would have more accurately addressed the situation, we understand the logic of ending distractions and winning elections. We wish our friends there nothing but success going forward,” the statement said.
 
The Florida Democratic Party couldn’t have paid for such a result: The RPOF bashing an RNC vendor that turns around and bashes RPOF for slander.
 
Way to go, RNC.

In all, Strategic Allied Consulting earned at least $3 million from the RNC nationwide for voter-registration drives. In Florida, the state party received $1.3 million from the RNC to pay Strategic. The contracts have been cancelled and, in Florida, Republicans now have to come up with a new way to add new voters ahead of the Oct. 9 registration deadline for the general election.
 
Republicans this year in Florida have added about 46,000 new voters to the rolls. Democrats have added 220,000 — and a good deal of that work was done by the Obama campaign and unpaid volunteers, Democrats say.
 
Democrats now lead Republicans by 443,166 active registered Florida voters. Expect that lead to grow.
 
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More: http://www.miamiherald.com/2012/09/30/3027663/republicans-play-defense-over.html
 

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WASHINGTON — Florida elections officials said Friday that at least 10 counties have identified suspicious and possibly fraudulent voter registration forms turned in by a firm working for the Republican Party of Florida, which has filed an election fraud complaint with the the state Division of Elections against its one-time consultant.
 
The controversy in Florida -- which began with possibly fraudulent forms that first cropped up in Palm Beach County -- has engulfed the Republican National Committee, which admitted Thursday that it urged state parties in seven swing states to hire the firm, Strategic Allied Consulting.The RNC paid the company at least $3.1 million -- routed through the state parties of Florida, Nevada, Colorado, North Carolina and Virginia -- to register voters and run get out the vote operations. Wisconsin and Ohio had not yet paid the firm for get-out-the-vote operations it was contracted to do.
 
The RNC severed its ties to the firm Thursday after questions arose about the work Strategic Allied did in Palm Beach County, where election officials have turned over to prosecutors 106 voter registration forms submitted by one worker, some of which contained apparent forgeries and other problems.
 
Now elections officials across Florida are scrutinizing voter registration forms turned into their counties on behalf of the state Republican party. The state elections division is also investigating.

Read more: http://www.latimes.com/news/politics/la-pn-voter-registration-florida-republicans-20120928,0,7654954.story

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