GOP Paid Firm Faces Voter Fraud Charge
By Laura Kurtzman
Similar allegations have surfaced in Oregon and West Virginia, where the group has been active.
The Nevada allegations were reported Tuesday night by KLAS-TV in Las Vegas about Eric Russell, a former employee of the Republican-funded group, Voters Outreach of America, which also goes by the names America Votes and Project America Votes.
In an affidavit filed with the lawsuit, Russell said he was told to ask prospective voters, "Who would you vote for in the next election?" He said he was told to register only those who supported President Bush.
"I personally witnessed my supervisor at VOA, together with her personal assistant, destroy completed registration forms that VOA employees had collected," said Russell. "All of the destroyed registration forms were for registrants who indicated their party preference as 'Democrat.' "
Russell said he registered both Democrats and Republicans and, as a result, his pay was docked. According to the lawsuit against the Clark County Registrar of Voters, he provided copies of destroyed registration forms he retrieved from his supervisor's garbage can.
Russell repeated the allegations in a telephone interview Wednesday with the Mercury News.
GOP-Funded Outreach
Voters Outreach of America is run by Nathan Sproul, an Arizona GOP political consultant whose firm, Sproul & Associates, has been paid nearly $500,000 by the Republican National Committee to do voter outreach.
Sproul denied Russell's allegations in an interview with the Associated Press and said Russell was a disgruntled employee who had been fired. Sproul did not return calls from the Mercury News.
Wednesday, the Republican National Committee e-mailed affidavits from two people who worked at Voters Outreach of America denying any voter-registration forms had been destroyed. They said all forms were turned in to county recorders' offices or the Nevada Republican Party.
"The Republican Party has a zero-tolerance policy for anything that smacks of impropriety in registering voters," said Jim Dyke of the Republican National Committee. He accused Democrats of indulging in "selective outrage" that ignored wrongdoing by Democratic groups, but did not provide specifics.
Sproul's group also has been active in Oregon, where state officials Wednesday said they were investigating a man featured in a Portland television report saying he "might" destroy Democratic registration forms. It was not clear for whom the man worked.
Lawsuits alleging electoral irregularities also have been filed in Florida. Wednesday, the state Supreme Court heard arguments in a suit seeking to require election officials to count provisional ballots regardless of where they are cast.
Tuesday, unions and voting-rights groups sued to stop Florida officials from disqualifying more than 10,000 incomplete registration forms, accusing the state of overly restrictive rules that disproportionately hurt minority voters.
Manual Recount Issue
Also Tuesday, plaintiffs in another suit met with aides to Florida Secretary of State Glenda Hood to discuss how counties with touch-screen voting should conduct manual recounts. The state had banned recounts in such counties, but an administrative law judge, responding to a suit brought by the American Civil Liberties Union and other groups, threw out that rule in August.
Alia Faraj, a spokeswoman for Hood, a Republican who was appointed by Gov. Jeb Bush, said the lawsuits were politically motivated and were eroding voter confidence.
"They are questioning every single law that we are following and that we are complying with, federal or state," she said. "And I think it's inappropriate for them to be doing this at the 11th hour."
The lawsuit regarding voter-registration forms, filed in federal court in Miami, stems from Hood's recent recommendation to throw out forms on which registrants did not check a box indicating they are U.S. citizens, even if they signed an oath at the bottom of the form swearing they are.
It charges that while some registrants fixed their incomplete forms before the Oct. 4 deadline, elections officials did not always process them in time, and did not let other registrants know their forms were flawed. It charges Hood and elections supervisors in Broward, Duval, Miami-Dade and Orange counties with violating federal election law and the Voting Rights Act.
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Voter Fraud Alleged
By Adrienne Packer
The Las Vegas Review-Journal
Thursday 14 October 2004
Group accused of trashing Democrats' registration forms.
Federal and state authorities are looking into Democratic Party allegations that a voter registration group hired by the Republican Party tossed out registration forms signed by Democrats.
The FBI and state officials are reviewing comments by Eric Russell, a former employee of Voter Outreach of America, who claims to have witnessed supervisors throwing away Democrats' voter registration forms.
Destruction of the forms is a federal crime, according to Clark County attorneys.
"We are gathering preliminary information and we'll discuss that information with the U.S. Attorney," said FBI Special Agent David Schrom. "Based on what his guidance is, we'll see whether there is a potential federal violation and whether we can initiate an investigation."
Secretary of State Dean Heller also said Wednesday he is reviewing state and federal laws to determine which might have been violated.
Russell, who was paid $8.50 an hour to register voters, said he was fired last month after protesting his supervisors' destruction of Democratic forms.
"I didn't think it was right to register Republicans when there are others out there that should also be allowed the opportunity to register," Russell said Wednesday. A supervisor "right in front of me was tearing up the Democratic registration forms."
A Chandler, Ariz., political consulting firm, Sproul & Associates, was hired by the Republican National Committee to register Republicans in Nevada, according to the Associated Press. In Nevada, a hotly contested swing state in the presidential election, Voter Outreach carried out the registration effort.
Nathan Sproul, head of Sproul & Associates and a former director of the Arizona Republican Party, denied Voter Outreach workers tore up forms, the Associated Press reported. He called Russell a disgruntled employee.
But Russell isn't the only former Voter Outreach employee to express concerns about the method used to collect Republican voter registration forms. And Sproul's tactics have also been called into question in Oregon, where officials are investigating his group's voter registration efforts.
Tyrone Mrasak said when he worked for the organization the daily goal was to register 18 Republican voters. If they reached their goal in two hours, for example, they could leave and still be paid for eight hours of work, Mrasak said.
"We didn't get credit for forms we brought back marked Democrat," he said.
Mrasak said he often loitered in front of homeless shelters and rewarded homeless people with cigarettes for registering Republican.
"As long as they have an address, they can register," Mrasak said. "If they were looking to bum a cigarette I'd say, 'I'll trade you a cigarette if you sign this.' "
Democrats said they have done no investigation of the allegations themselves and have based their claims on a local television news report that aired Tuesday.
Their claims are the latest in a series of allegations from both parties that either Democrats or Republicans are trying to taint November's already contentious general election.
"Republicans are trying to steal this election," Democrat Steven Horsford said during a Wednesday press conference held to respond to Russell's comments.
"This is a horrible thing that has happened in this state," said Clark County Commissioner Yvonne Atkinson Gates, who also serves as chairwoman of the Democratic National Committee's Black Caucus. "It's something we will not tolerate."
Brian Scroggins, chairman of the Clark County Republican Party, said the Republicans have "zero tolerance" for voter registration fraud. He added that Democrats have "selective outrage" over such matters.
"Some groups they've been involved with in the past have had allegations of voter fraud and they weren't outraged at that time," Scroggins said. "We are not out there trying to disenfranchise anybody or keep people from going to the polls."
In Oregon, officials opened their investigation on the heels of a local television report in which a paid-per-registration canvasser for Sproul & Associates said he had been instructed only to accept registrations from Republicans, and that he "might" destroy those from Democrats, the Associated Press reported.
News of the alleged destruction of Democratic registration forms reached Washington, D.C., on Wednesday, prompting Democratic National Committee chairman Terence McAuliffe to fire off a letter to his Republican counterpart. In it, he demanded to know why Republicans are funding "an organization that is ripping up voter registration forms of Democrats."
"We are deeply concerned these reports of Republican National Committee funded felonious activities ... could serve to discourage all voters from voting because of concerns of problems with their ballot," McAuliffe wrote in a letter to Ed Gillespie, chairman of the Republican National Committee.
McAuliffe urged Gillespie to refrain from paying voter registration organizations such as Voter Outreach until investigations are completed.
Voters who show up at the polls, but do not appear on registration rolls, may request to vote provisionally. Provisional votes are counted in federal races and only in case of a close election.
If provisional voters bring voter registration receipts with them to the polls it increases the likelihood their votes will be counted, according to county election officials.
County officials said if provisional votes come into play, the battle over which provisional votes count will likely end up in court.
Wednesday's denouncement of what Democrats labeled political "trickery" came one day after they decried Republican Dan Burdish's challenge to 17,000 Democratic voters.
Burdish, a Republican businessman and former state party executive director, challenged the voters in the 3rd Congressional District, arguing that as "inactive voters" they do not live at the address associated with their voter registration.
The accusations from both parties could lead to lawsuits should either John Kerry or President Bush win the state by a small margin.
The parties might be casting doubt on the registration process to lay the groundwork for lawsuits, said David Damore, a political science professor at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas.
"It doesn't surprise me they're trying to get this out there, put the doubt out there so they have some basis for a legal challenge," Damore said. "American political history is rife with these types of activities. It's unfortunate, but it goes to the issue of how intense this campaign is being fought in the sense people care about the outcome and that might lead them to bend the rules."
The Democrats have set up a phone line to answer questions about infringements on voters' rights. Voters can call 877-WE-VOTE-2 if they have questions.
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KGW Report Prompts Oregon Voter Fraud Investigation
KGW News and The Associated Press
Wednesday 13 October 2004
Oregon Secretary of State Bill Bradbury and Attorney General Hardy Myers said Wednesday they plan to investigate allegations uncovered by KGW that paid canvassers in Portland may have destroyed voter registration forms.
"I have never in my five years as secretary of state ever seen an allegation like the one that came up tonight - ever," Bradbury said of a KGW report that aired Tuesday night on NewsChannel 8 at 11. "I mean, frankly, it just totally offends me that someone would take someone else's registration and throw it out."
KGW interviewed Mike Johnson, 20, a canvasser collecting signatures in downtown Portland, who said he was instructed to only accept Republican registration forms. He told a KGW reporter that he "might" destroy forms turned in by Democrats since he was being paid by the Republican party.
In addtion, Bradbury said there were other complaints that have come from outside the Portland metro area about improper voter registration practices. Those will also be part of the probe.
Johnson told KGW he works for a group that conducted voter registration efforts in Nevada before coming to Oregon. That group is believed to be a Chandler, Arizona-based consulting firm called Sproul & Associates , which is now the target of a voter fraud investigation by Nevada authorities.
KLAS-TV in Las Vegas recently interviewed a former employee of the private voter registration organization who said hundreds - perhaps thousands - of Democratic registration forms there had been destroyed.
Eric Russell, who worked for a Sproul & Associates group called Voter Outreach of America, said he had personally witnessed his boss take out eight to ten Democratic registration forms from a pile and shred them in Nevada.
Sproul & Associates is run by Nathan Sproul, a former head of the Republican Party in Arizona who has subcontracted with the Republican National Committee to do voter outreach efforts.
Sproul has denied any shredding occurred in Nevada, saying that "we registered anyone who wanted to register."
Back here in Oregon, Douglas County Clerk Barbara Nielsen said she had received a complaint from voters who said canvassers working for Sproul & Associates had tried to push them into registering as Republicans, saying otherwise the canvassers wouldn't get paid for their efforts.
Additionally, Nielsen said she had gotten calls from Roseburg-area voters who said that canvassers from the Sproul group had implied that their cards wouldn't be turned in if they registered as Democrats.
Bradbury said that in Oregon, it is a class-C felony, punishable by five years in jail or a $100,000 fine, to alter a voter registration form, or to throw one away. He added that canvassers can't turn away a voter because of his or her party affiliation.
The source of the problem seems to stem from paying canvassers per registration, Bradbury observed.
"In Oregon, we have outlawed paying per signature on initiative petitions because it just inspires fraud," Bradbury said. "I don't see any reason to believe that a bounty system on voter registrations is any less likely to inspire fraud, so we need to investigate."
This isn't the first time that Sproul & Associates have surfaced in Oregon. Last month in Medford, a librarian was approached by a group claiming to be affiliated with the progressive, nonpartisan America Votes organization, with a request to set up registration booths in the library.
When librarian Megan O'Flaherty probed into the group, she found that instead, they were part of Sproul & Associates, and had nothing to do with America Votes.
Kevin Looper, the director of the Oregon chapter of America Votes, said lawyers for the group are looking into the situation.
"We take this extremely seriously," he said. "When you are engaged in voter registration, you are obligated to turn in every card."
Other stories of unorthodox voter registrations have also surfaced throughout the state.
In Eugene, several University of Oregon students were approached by canvassers circulating a petition to crack down on child molesters and told they must register as Republicans in order for their signatures to "count."
"They told me that by registering as a Republican, I would be helping people fight child molesters," said Elizabeth Thygeson, 19, who had already registered as a Democrat. "I didn't appreciate that. It wasn't exactly the truth."
The voter fraud accusations in Oregon and Nevada have put the GOP on the defensive.
The Republican National Committee issued a statement Wednesday that said its party has "a zero-tolerance policy for anything that smacks of impropriety in registering voters."
And Rory Smith, a spokeswoman for the Republican Party in Oregon, denounced the alleged misconduct saying, "We do not condone this type of behavior."
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