The More You Know

As Moe recently learned, it's always a good idea to double check and make sure you're really on the voting rolls. It's common enough to be mistakenly deleted, and there are less innocent reasons as well. That kind's less common, but more interesting.

For instance (via Marshall)

The I-Team has obtained information about an alleged widespread pattern of potential registration fraud aimed at democrats. Thee focus of the story is a private registration company called Voters Outreach of America, AKA America Votes.

The out-of-state firm has been in Las Vegas for the past few months, registering voters. It employed up to 300 part-time workers and collected hundreds of registrations per day, but former employees of the company say that Voters Outreach of America only wanted Republican registrations.

Two former workers say they personally witnessed company supervisors rip up and trash registration forms signed by Democrats.

"We caught her taking Democrats out of my pile, handed them to her assistant and he ripped them up right in front of us. I grabbed some of them out of the garbage and she tells her assisatnt to get those from me," said Eric Russell, former Voters Outreach employee.

Eric Russell managed to retrieve a pile of shredded paperwork including signed voter registration forms, all from Democrats. We took them to the Clark County Election Department and confirmed that they had not, in fact, been filed with the county as required by law.

So the people on those forms who think they will be able to vote on Election Day are sadly mistaken. We attempted to speak to Voters Outreach but found that its office has been rented out to someone else.

The landlord says Voters Outreach was evicted for non-payment of rent. Another source said the company has now moved on to Oregon where it is once again registering voters. It's unknown how many registrations may have been tossed out, but another ex-employee told Eyewitness News she had the same suspicions when she worked there.

It's going to take a while to sort all of this out, but the immediate concern for voters is to make sure you really are registered.

Call the Clark County Election Department at 455-VOTE orclick here to see if you are registered.

The company has been largely, if not entirely funded, by the Republican National Committee. Similar complaints have been received in Reno where the registrar has asked the FBI to investigate.

You'll see why these terms are highlighted in a minute....I decided to use my crack investigative skills (yeah, pretty much just Google) to work on this--it's more fun than extraordinary rendition.

"Voter's Outreach of America" turns up this American Prospect article on Republican groups helping Nader get on the ballot:

Nor has Nader denounced the covert assistance his Arizona ballot-qualification effort received from Sproul, who is currently running the No Taxpayer Money For Politicians" initiative, a right-wing effort to ban candidates from receiving public financing. According to several sources, two of the contractors Sproul hired to oversee petition gathering for No Taxpayer Money For Politicians -- Aaron "A.J." James, who directs Voters' Outreach of America, and Diane Burns -- were also paid by Sproul to get as many signatures as possible for Nader.

"Sproul" is Nathan Sproul, former executive director of the Arizona Republican party and the Arizona field director of the Christian Coalition. Here's a story about a dodgy voter registration effort in Oregon by Sproul's company. Using the name "America Votes"--one of the aliases of the company mentioned in the Nevada article, but also a large, well known, non-partisan registration group--they contacted some libraries in Oregon about setting up voter registration booths. Libraries are very scrupulous about having non-partisan groups run their voter registration drives, and one of the librarians checking the request noticed that this "America Votes" was affiliated with Sproul & Associates', Sproul's consulting firm that works exclusively for Republicans.
The non-partisan America Votes group is considering legal action:

"This organization (Sproul) absolutely has nothing to do with America Votes,'' said Kevin Looper, the state organizing director for America Votes.

But the man behind Sproul & Associates says it was an innocent mistake.

"We were not trying to copy their name,'' said Nathan Sproul, owner of the consulting and management company. "All we were trying to do is register people to vote.''

He said his company, hired by a number of clients to register voters, came up with what he believed was a generic name. He said he had not heard of the original America Votes.

But Looper said that seemed unlikely.

"You'll have to forgive me for not finding it credible that they would not have heard of a group that is one of the largest in the country and is in every one of the 17 swing states and that could hardly be missed in any political circle,'' he told The Mail Tribune in Medford. "While we appreciate their word that they will cease and desist, we will want to see that in writing.''

The matter first surfaced when the Jackson County Library Services Central Library received a letter from Sproul & Associates, Inc. which began:

"Our firm has been contracted to help coordinate a national non-partisan voter registration drive, America Votes! in several states across the nation.''

Remember, the Nevada article reported that the same company was doing work in Oregon. And another article about Oregon library stuff notes that Sproul & Associates is doing work in Nevada (as well as many other key swing states):

Sue Noel, a temporary employee at Sproul & Associates, said her company is also voter drive is called Project America Votes and she knew about the redundant name.

"What we try to do is tell people we are not affiliated with America Votes," she said. She said the company already has set up registration drives in Pennsylvania, Minnesota, Michigan, Ohio, Florida and Nevada. In addition to libraries, they’ve set up registration drives in front of businesses and grocery stores, she said.

The Nevada article says that "anyone who has recently registered or re-registered to vote outside a mall or grocery store or even government building may be affected." I assume those are common enough registration sites, of course. But I think there's a very strong circumstantial case that it's the same company.

A more recent AP article said that Sproul's company was doing voter registration for Republicans in Oregon using techniques that raised some eyebrows:

[America Coming Together's] platoon of paid canvassers are paid a flat hourly rate, in contrast to Republican canvassers paid by the hour by the Arizona firm, Sproul & Associates. One canvasser told The Oregonian newspaper that he was paid $3 per signature.

The form of payment has been controversial in Oregon. Critics claim that paying canvassers by the signature encourages fraud. In 2002, Oregon voters banned payment by the signature for ballot measures in the wake of reports about widespread fraud. But that ban did not extend to voter registration cards.

Democrats in Oregon have complained that the Sproul canvassers have been pressuring residents to register as Republicans so that they can get paid.

Neel Pender, executive director of the Oregon Democratic Party said the state should extend the ban to voter registration cards. "Frankly, it's something that is a loophole that should be closed," he said.

But Nathan Sproul, the firm's CEO said he has not had any significant problems.

Sproul and Associates has received $125,000 for voter registration services from national and state Republican party committees this election cycle.

UPDATE: another story from Oregon:

According to KGW's report, they managed to corner a man conducting voter registration in Pioneer Courthouse Square today who was only accepting Republican registrations. In fact, the report said, he sometimes simply tosses Democratic registration cards in the trash. Why? Because he's getting paid $5 for every Republican registration, but nothing for Democratic registrations.

At the end of the KGW report, they stated that the man said he was from what he called the "traveling team" (no idea if that should be capitalized). They then referenced the story out of Las Vegas. Why? Because, they say, the man they cornered told them that his group had just recently been in Las Vegas.

1. It's nice to see local TV news commit actual journalism for once.
2. This matches up with both the Las Vegas story and Sproul paying people by the (Republican) registration.
3. How do they get the registration cards to the board of elections? Do they mail them individually or drop them off in back up? If the latter, someone should tell election officials in all the states where this group may be operating to contact the authorities if "Project America Votes", "Sproul and Associates", or "Voters Outreach of America" canvassers are dropping off large batches of registrations and there happen to be 0 Democrats among them.

FURTHER UPDATE: (via a Kos diary). This post to a library newsgroup reports similar activities by Sproul & Associates in Pennsylvania and West Virginia:

Date: Fri Sep 17, 2004 5:49:58 AM US/Eastern Subject: Re: SCAM ALERT: Voter Registration

We had the same thing happen here in PA. Sproul and Associates hires Kelly temp services to do voter registration. At one library site where they were suppose to be only doing voter registration they were also asking people how they were going to vote. I did some research and found out that they were doing the same thing in WV (see the article below) and one temp worker claims that they were trained to ask people how they were going to vote. If the person said "Bush" they were given a voter registration form. If they said "Kerry" they were just told thank you and no form was given. When we found out we asked them to leave immediately. One explanation from Sproul and Associates was that they were doing "market surveys" at some sites. Later they claimed that it was just a problem with a few temp workers. Sproul and Associates is headed by Nathan Sproul the former head of the GOP and Christian Coalition in Arizona. They also always said they represented America Votes. When I finally asked them to give me the contact information for America Votes they told me that "America Votes is a non-partisan voter registration drive project of Sproul & Associates. Everything originates from this office. There is a partisan organization with that same name."

Clearly they know that when they say they represent America Votes they are misleading people.

Holly

Here is the article from the WV paper for more info.

VOTER REGISTRATION DRIVE 'MISLEADING', THE CHARLESTON GAZETTE, 08/20/2004
Byline: TOM SEARLS

...Bragg feels her employers were misleading the public, even if it's not illegal. Employees were to approach One Stop customers and ask if they favor George Bush or John Kerry for president. If Bush was their answer, they were then to inquire if the person was registered to vote and offer them a voter registration card.

If the person supported Democrat Kerry, they were only to say thank you and give them a registration card only if asked.

If asked questions, employees were instructed, "Only state you are there to conduct a simple field poll to see what neighborhood support is ... a nonpartisan registration drive."

They were told to quietly listen to any person who becomes angry and to remember, "The goal is to register Republicans and to remain positive."

"Is this the way it has to be? People have to be sneaky to make $9 an hour?" Bragg said.

Employees were also given the number of a Kelly Services employee to contact if there are problems. Contacted Wednesday, two different employees said they would have someone from Sproul & Associates, the firm paying for the survey, answer any questions.

Later, a Kelly Services employee who would identify himself only as "Rob" initially said a message had been left with Ben Decker at Sproul's office. He said he had no contact number for Decker, then agreed to release a Michigan number.

A message left with Decker was not returned.

"[Kelly Services] said the less you know about the company, the better off you are, especially if the media would come asking questions," said Bragg, an admitted Democrat. "That made me more curious than ever as to who's behind this and what's going on."

Sproul & Associates appears to be operated by Nathan Sproul, former head of the Arizona Republican Party and a wealthy GOP activist who has been involved in petition drives. An Internet search shows Sproul has received some financing from national Republican groups, though it was not clear who is paying for the West Virginia work....

Comments

[hilzoy]

Thanks for grabbing this one. I read this story as I was wrestling my image into semi-submission, and hoped someone who wasn't being driven to despair by the vagaries of Typepad might post on it.

I so completely loathe people who do this sort of thing. I am reminded of a story I heard about 20 years ago about someone who had the clever idea of pretending to have a heart attack in Central Park, having someone take him into their apartment while waiting for an ambulance, and then robbing them: it's so much worse than ordinary robbery, since it undercuts our trust in something that really matters. Or maybe a politician I once encountered who was subsequently indicted for embezzling state funds set aside for educating the mentally retarded, which made me wonder: why on earth wouldn't he stick to embezzling highway funds or something? Ugh.

[Moe Lane]

Speaking as someone who had to drive for a half hour yesterday to reregister, this does not amuse, in that exciting Queen-Victoria-chilly-reptilian-stare kind of way. No lawyer, but it looks like there's enough on the NV group to indict and enough circumstantial links between the NV and the OR entities to justify an investigation.

[Katherine]

These allegations are sort of content-less, but it's a Republican making them and up to 6 related resignations, so it might be worth additional poking.

[Slartibartfast]

These guys probably need to be locked up.

And, as a general rule of thumb, people shouldn't register to vote through volunteer organizations for precisely this reason.

[Bill]

gee, republicans, go figure

[hilzoy]

There's more here. They seem to have been doing similar things in PA and WV as well. (Not actually throwing away registration cards, but registering only Republicans.)

[Katherine]

hey, don't you read my updates?

I really think ACT is orders of magnitude more legit than these guys, but the safest bet is probably doing it yourself.

[sidereal]

Let's not get all muddled. . . I think it waters down the sin here.

Registering only Republicans is, I believe, perfectly fine. I think it's pretty shoddy, violates the spirit of honest democracy, and I would never consider it myself, but that's the worst it is. Targeting registration drives at areas that vote heavily one way or the other is basically a roundabout way of doing the same thing.

On the other hand tearing up registrations is not only illegal, it is treasonous.

[hilzoy]

Oops.

[Katherine]

sidereal--are you sure it's legal? Mass. is either pretty strict about separating registration and partisan activities, or our candidates are super-careful, because this so, so would not fly for any campaign I've worked for...you're not allowed to be wearing a button when you register voters.

Also, they're probably violating the trademark rights of the actual "America Votes". And it's further evidence that the same group is involved, and if they're doing one thing in Nevada they may also be doing it elsewhere. (It's not clear whether the shredding is especially zealous supervisors or it's condoned or even encouraged by the company.)

[sidereal]

"sidereal--are you sure it's legal?"

No, not at all. I drew that from the "even if it's not illegal" from the quoted article.

I don't think it should be illegal, though I do believe it's unethical. Like I said, you'd have to extend the same principle and say it's illegal to only register in urban areas, since you'd go heavily Democrat, so you'd be legally required to provide 'equal time' registration in suburban areas. Silly, but that's where it leads.

[Sebastian Holsclaw]

I actually hate all registration drives. I'm not interested in stopping people from registering, but just make it easy and let people do it on their own.

[Katherine]

Well, it doesn't HAVE to lead there and there are good arguments against it. I mean, what if you don't have a car?

I'm not polling voters first should be illegal either, but it's sketchy when they're not honest about it.

[Katherine]

sigh

[Katherine]

Also, Sproul & Associates got close to $500,000 from the Republican party for "political consulting" as well as the $125,000 for voter registration I noted above.

[hilzoy]

I just register everyone, which just goes to show that Sebastian and I can't agree on anything... sigh. I actually think it's fun, but then I'm the sort of person who actually likes talking to strangers about why their vote counts, and why even if it didn't, the mere act of registering can help their community.

[Mnemosyne]

My very Republican brother (as in, two pictures of Ronald Reagan on his desk, campaigned for Bush I) did voter registration in college here in Los Angeles. And he was always very clear that ALL party registrations had to be accepted, even if the person was registering as a Democrat and not a Republican. Not just legally required, but ethically, too.

As a yellow-dog Democrat, I have to say I'm really looking forward to the day when ethical and responsible people are in charge of the Republican party again and we can have reasonable discussions that don't devolve into, "All Democrats are traitors!"

(I know you guys don't do that here. That's why I sneak in every once in awhile. That, and Moe's friends with Rivka at Respectful of Otters, which is an endorsement in and of itself.)