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GOP Voter Registration Scandal Widens, Prosecutors File Criminal Charges

A Virginia official is busted for tossing voter forms. Turns out he works for the national party, too.

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It was PinPoint Staffing, in fact, which reportedly hired the man Strategic blamed for the fraudulent registration forms turned in originally in Palm Beach. But while PinPoint continues to seek workers for GOP-related efforts around the country, and as Sproul’s operations continue in “as many as 30 states”, it is the Republican National Committee’s response to the entire affair, including to the arrest today, that may be the most troubling…

 

The RNC ‘firing’ deception

Colin Small, according to his LinkedIn profile, as  captured by the NotLarrySaboto blog (which was the first to highlight the  initial report of a man with PA license plates tossing a bag of Virginia Voter Registration Forms into a Harrisonburg dumpster), wasn’t only working for the state GOP or for Strategic Allied Consulting or for PinPoint. He was working as a “Grassroots Field Director at the Republican National Committee,” according to LinkedIn.

[Update: NBC News is reporting this morning that RNC Communications Director denies Small was "directly employed by the RNC" and that he will be "told to take down that."  Small is currently in jail and unable to respond to clear up the question, however.]

Last month, several days after fraudulent voter registration forms collected by Strategic Allied Consulting and turned in by the Florida GOP began to be discovered by County election officials in Florida, the  RNC claimed to have fired Strategic.

Sean Spicer, the RNC’s Communications Director, boasted that the party took “swift and bold action” after learning of the fraud, claiming they have “zero tolerance” for it or for those who commit it. However, as we summarized in  our very first report on this scandal, Sproul’s companies have a long history of workers being paid per Republican registration form and for being accused of destroying Democratic ones.

Despite that, they were hired once again this year by the RNC who, Sproul says, asked them to create the new company in June without his name on it to avoid it being tied to him. Not very bold or zero tolerancy of them. Though Spicer said he had no knowledge of that arrangement, Sproul told  the BRAD BLOG he stands by his assertion.

Beyond that, last Thursday  we reported that Sproul’s firms, including what appeared to be a “clone” operation of Strategic Allied Consulting, calling itself Issue Advocacy Partners, were still found working for Republicans and right-wing ballot initiatives in at least 10 states. Subsequently, on Friday, the  Los Angeles Times reported that, in fact, Sproul was still “hiring workers for a voter canvassing operation this fall in as many as 30 states.”

On Thursday, following Small’s arrest, Sproul’s spokesman Leibowitz hedged that number by telling us via email: “What we said on the record to various media outlets is that his companies are working in ‘as many as 30 states.’ That could mean 1 state. Or 2. Or 30. You get the idea, I’m sure.”

We do. The idea is Sproul does not want to come clean about his ongoing operations and who it is that he continues to work for, preferring instead to live up to the “shady” adjective that’s often applied to him in the media. Despite our follow-up request, Leibowitz did not identify the exact number of states that Sproul was still working in, or who was paying him to do so.

Strategic was said to have been hired by state Republican Parties, at the request of the RNC, for voter registration drives in five states (Florida, North Carolina, Virginia, Nevada and Colorado) and for “Get Out the Vote” campaigns in Ohio and Wisconsin. When both RNC and state GOP officials claimed to have fired them, it seems they didn’t really mean it.

 
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