Political Irony

The Republican Party has been waging a loud and destructive war against voter fraud for years. They defunded ACORN, and more recently Republicans have passed voter ID laws that will make it more difficult for 10% of the US population to vote. All in the name of fighting voter fraud.

Meanwhile, some people have noted that there aren’t very many documented cases of actual voter fraud, and that the Republican war on voter fraud is actually a craven attempt to disenfranchise people who tend to vote Democratic.

Well, the Republican Party has been vindicated. We how have positive evidence of real fraud. And it comes from the Republican Party itself. The Republican National Committee paid at least $3.1 million to Strategic Allied Consulting to register voters and run get-out-the-vote operations in a number of swing states, a company accused of committing fraud.

For example, in Florida, election officials have filed an election fraud complaint against the company after finding fraudulent voter registration forms containing fake signatures and other false information. One election supervisor said “Anyone with any sense would have known there was something wrong. It was that flagrant. In no way did they look genuine.”

The company tried to blame the fraud on a single employee in one county, until election officials produced evidence of similar problem in eight counties. In one county alone, one quarter of the voter registration applications turned in by the state Republican Party had problems.

So who is Strategic Allied Consulting? It is run by Nathan Sproul, who is a former Arizona Republican Party director. In 2004, employees of his firms in several states admitted that they destroyed registration forms signed by Democrats, so that when the unsuspecting voter showed up at the polling place they would not be able to cast a vote. Workers even said that they were fired if they brought in any registration forms signed by Democrats. There were other antics too, like gathering signatures to put Nader on the ballot to siphon off Democratic voters. Sproul’s company had even impersonated the left-leaning America Votes! to organize voter registration drives at libraries.

The RNC knew about Sproul’s problems. According to Sproul himself, when the Republicans hired him they asked that he set up a new firm so they could avoid being publicly linked to his past problems. In fact, the paperwork of the new company doesn’t even mention Sproul.

But it gets worse. Despite calls in 2004 from Democratic senators for an investigation into the activities of Sproul’s companies, the Department of Justice did nothing. Instead, the Bush administration invited Sproul and his wife to the White House Christmas party.

Another of Sproul’s companies was hired by Mitt Romney to do “field consulting” during the Republican primary.

So, how serious are the Republicans about fighting voter fraud, when they hypocritically hire someone who has been repeatedly accused of fraudulent activities? They hounded ACORN to death, but invited Sproul to their Christmas party. Will James O’Keefe do a sting video against Sproul?

Do elephants have wings?

UPDATE: More information about the widening scandal.