By Pam Martens: October 1, 2012
There are growing allegations of widespread voter registration fraud from Florida to California. Voters are being registered as Republicans when they are not and given fake or wrong addresses in the wrong voting precinct. This could lead to widespread voter disenfranchisement on election day.
The footprints lead to a long-time Republican strategist named Nathan Sproul who has run various companies out of a suite of offices at 80 East Rio Salado Parkway, Suite 814, Tempe, Arizona. Sproul’s companies have been the target of voter registration fraud probes in prior years.
The company at the center of the latest allegations is Strategic Allied Consulting. As Brad Friedman reports: “The firm, Strategic Allied Consulting, is the latest creation of Sproul, a longtime, high-level GOP operative whose companies — including Sproul & Associates and Lincoln Strategy Group — have been accused of destroying Democratic voter registration forms and changing information on them in election after election, in state after state, year after year. He was hired for similar operations by Bush/Cheney in ’04, by McCain/Palin in ’08 and by Mitt Romney’s campaign late last year.”
As news of the fraudulent voter registrations forms spread, Sproul’s firm, Strategic Allied Consulting, was fired by the Republican National Committee and multiple state Republican committees. If Sproul is serious about regaining his reputation, he should try tweeting less and work on this pathetic effort at a web site. (Is one really expected to trust the word of an anonymous web site with no person’s name or address or personal background or company history.)
The anonymous web site for Strategic Allied Consulting wants us to know it is ticked off: “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.”
Just days earlier, Sproul was tweeting up a storm. Referring to the comments of Presidential candidate Mitt Romney that were captured on video disparaging 47 percent of Americans as government freeloaders, one tweeter says to Sproul, “as a veteran political guy, u think it’s smart or presidential to insult nearly 1 of 2 Americans?” Sproul responds: “…he said what 53% are thinking. Dems are wrong on this. God bless Mitt!”
Unless the Republicans are planning some very serious redistricting, a September 12 tweet from Sproul doesn’t make much sense: “I’m pretty sure if the Presidential election were held in Israel, Romney would win with 99%…” The Republicans have paid millions to this guy for a big win in November and he’s tweeting about how the electorate in Israel would vote. (He does know he can’t register Israelis in the swing states, right?)
Sproul also appears to think this less-than-profound tweet from Karl Rove, linking to a satire of Paul Ryan by the humor magazine, The Onion, was worthy of retweeting: Rove says: “Even the Onion gets it. The Onion. The frigging Onion. http://bit.ly/OvU0f4”
Lee Fang at The Nation, reports that Sproul ran “an $8 million voter outreach program for Republicans in 2004—is accused of having his workers destroy voter registration forms turned in by Democrats in Nevada and Oregon that year. Similar tactics were reported in Pennsylvania, Minnesota and West Virginia.” Fang goes on to say that in this election cycle, Sproul “has already received $3.1 million for work in Virginia, Florida, Nevada, North Carolina and Colorado. Although the payments were made by state party committees, it’s now clear that the Romney campaign and the national GOP coordinated the effort.”
The Los Angeles Times reports that Sproul’s past reputation is so toxic that the RNC asked him to set up a front company with no outward ties to himself to do work in this election. The paper also reported that the “Republican National Committee admitted that it had urged state Republican parties in seven swing states to hire the firm, Strategic Allied Consulting.” Those states are: Florida, Nevada, Colorado, North Carolina, Virginia, Wisconsin and Ohio.
