Make Sure You Have Valid Photo ID!

[Willie Escalade]

Wake the fuck up!

[Willie Escalade]

Oh, yeah...some fraud WAS found. In Florida, no less. Oops!

http://www.latimes.com/news/politics...,7654954.story

Suspicious voter registration forms found in 10 Florida counties

WASHINGTON — Florida elections officials said Friday that at least 10 counties have identified suspicious and possibly fraudulent voter registration forms turned in by a firm working for the Republican Party of Florida, which has filed an election fraud complaint with the state Division of Elections against its one-time consultant.

The controversy in Florida -- which began with possibly fraudulent forms that first cropped up in Palm Beach County -- has engulfed the Republican National Committee, which admitted Thursday that it urged state parties in seven swing states to hire the firm, Strategic Allied Consulting.The RNC paid the company at least $3.1 million -- routed through the state parties of Florida, Nevada, Colorado, North Carolina and Virginia -- to register voters and run get-out-the-vote operations. Wisconsin and Ohio had not yet paid the firm for get-out-the-vote operations it was contracted to do.

The RNC severed its ties to the firm Thursday after questions arose about the work Strategic Allied did in Palm Beach County, where election officials have turned over to prosecutors 106 voter registration forms submitted by one worker, some of which contained apparent forgeries and other problems.

Now elections officials across Florida are scrutinizing voter registration forms turned in to their counties on behalf of the state Republican Party. The state elections division is also investigating.

Florida GOP officials – who said they hired Strategic Allied at the request of the RNC – alleged in their complaint Thursday that the firm turned in forms with fake signatures and false information, said Chris Cate, spokesman for the Division of Elections, which will turn over its findings to the Florida Department of Law Enforcement.

Vicki Davis, president of the Florida State Assn. of Supervisors of Elections, said Friday that she had heard from elections officials in Lee, Bay, Clay, Santa Rosa, Escambia and Okaloosa counties who had also identified problematic voter registration forms turned in by the Florida GOP. Pasco County officials discovered possibly fraudulent forms during the Republican primary, Davis said.

Cate, the spokesman for the state elections division, said possibly fraudulent forms have also been reported in Miami-Dade and Duval, two of the state’s most populous counties.

The number of suspicious voter registration applications was unusual, Davis said. “There might be an occasional one, but I don’t think we’ve ever had this number of counties that have had this number of cases all at the same time,” she said.

In Santa Rosa County, elections officials found 100 problematic voter registration applications out of a batch of roughly 400 turned in by the state Republican Party.

“Anyone with any sense would have known there was something wrong,” said elections supervisor Ann W. Bodenstein.

Most were changes in current registrations filed in the names of real voters, but signatures were spelled differently than the applicants’ names. Fake house numbers were given, and date of births did not match the names. The biggest red flag was that most of the forms were missing Social Security numbers.

“It was that flagrant,” she said. “In no way did they look genuine.”

Bodenstein said it appeared that whoever had been filling out the forms had been working off a database of voters that was at least four years old. She said she thought it was the work of “bottom of the totem pole” workers who were trying to reach a certain quota in order to be paid. Bodenstein reported the suspicious forms to the Office of the State Attorney for the First Judicial Circuit of Florida, which sent out investigators Thursday.

Bodenstein stressed that elections officials would strive to protect every vote.

“We will not disenfranchise anybody,” she said.

But if fraudulent forms changing the addresses of actual voters are inadvertently processed, they could create obstacles at the polls. If someone’s address is changed within the same county, they could still cast a ballot once poll workers were able to establish that the voter was in the correct precinct.

“It’s another step the clerk, the poll worker and the voter would have to go through in order to cast a vote,” Davis said.

Things would get more complicated if a voter’s address has been changed to another county. If that were the case, the voter would be forced to cast a provisional ballot, which would be evaluated later in the week by a local canvassing board.

More than 2,000 provisional ballots were cast in Florida in 2008; less than half of those ballots were ultimately counted, according to University of Florida election law professor Daniel Smith.

Strategic Allied is run by an Arizona-based man named Nathan Sproul, who has been dogged by charges in the past that his employees destroyed Democratic registrations. No charges were ever filed.

But his reputation is such that when Sproul was tapped by the RNC to do field work this year, officials requested that he set up a new firm to avoid being publicly linked to the past allegations, Sproul told The Times. The firm was set up at a Virginia address, and Sproul does not show up on the corporate paperwork.

In an interview Thursday, Sproul blamed the problematic forms in Palm Beach on one individual and said his firm had offered to assist elections officials in identifying the problems in other counties.
------------------------------------------------
Go figure!

[trish]

Usually, I just respond to other people's threads, but there's something important that needs addressed.

If you live in Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Kansas, Lousiana, Michigan, Pennsylvania, South Dakota or Tennessee and want to vote this year, make sure you have current valid photo ID, as it is now required in these states. Make sure your friends and family have ID as well.

This is especially critical if you live in one of these states that could go either way in this year's election. (Let's face it, we already know how Georgia, Kansas and Tennessee will be voting)

Also, if you live in Florida, make sure you are still registered to vote. They've been purging people from the rolls for political reasons.

Pass it along.

(Yes, this should probably go in the politics forum, but who actually goes there?)

~bump~

[trish]

Wake the fuck up!

Bump

[buttslinger]

Don't get mad, get even. You can make sure you're registered right on line. And right on time!! just google voter registration and your state. Check for early voting.

[buttslinger]

I talked to an escort from the backpages on the phone, she lied about her age. In her twenties, she had a high time in all the bars, alcohol and sex all the time. Now she's older, heavier, and has to work some crappy job and escort just to get by, She is also very active in gay and lesbian rights.

The statistics aren't kind to transgenders. Obama has not had a four year plan for the economy, he's always had an eight year plan. He's doing his part. He wants to change things and take you with him, but in truth it's you who has to change things to make them better.

REGISTER AND VOTE

[trish]

I talked to an escort from the backpages on the phone, she lied about her age. In her twenties, she had a high time in all the bars, alcohol and sex all the time. Now she's older, heavier, and has to work some crappy job and escort just to get by, She is also very active in gay and lesbian rights.

The statistics aren't kind to transgenders. Obama has not had a four year plan for the economy, he's always had an eight year plan. He's doing his part. He wants to change things and take you with him, but in truth it's you who has to change things to make them better.

REGISTER AND VOTE

~Bump~

[Prospero]

Good old Republicans....

if you can't win by normal methods, why not CHEAT!!!

More Suspicious Voter Forms Are Found
By LIZETTE ALVAREZ
Published: September 29, 2012



MIAMI — The number of Florida counties reporting suspicious voter registration forms connected to Strategic Allied Consulting, the firm hired by the state Republican Party to sign up new voters, has grown to 10, officials said, as local election supervisors continue to search their forms for questionable signatures, addresses or other identifiers.

After reports of suspicious forms surfaced in Florida, the company — owned by Nathan Sproul, who has been involved in voter registration efforts since at least the 2004 presidential election — was fired last week by the state Republican Party and the Republican National Committee. The party had hired it to conduct drives in Colorado, Nevada, North Carolina and Virginia.

In Colorado, a young woman employed by Strategic Allied was shown on a video outside a store in Colorado Springs recently telling a potential voter that she wanted to register only Republicans and that she worked for the county clerk’s office. The woman was fired, said Ryan Call, chairman of the Colorado Republican Party.

The Florida Division of Elections has forwarded the reports of possible fraud to the Florida Department of Law Enforcement for investigation. Prosecutors in some affected counties are also investigating. It is unclear how many forms have been forwarded, in all: in Palm Beach County, the election supervisor found 106 suspicious forms, but the number in several other counties is far lower.

Bay County has found eight suspicious forms with the Republican Party registration code connected to Strategic Allied. In Pasco County, three have been found.

The state Republican Party, which paid the company $1.3 million to register voters here, said it would file an elections fraud complaint against Strategic Allied, which is based in Tempe, Ariz.

Mr. Sproul was once the executive director of the Arizona Republican Party. In 2004, his voter registration project was investigated by the Justice Department and the attorneys general in Arizona, Nevada and Oregon after widespread allegations of fraud surfaced, but no charges were brought.

Questions are now being raised about how the company’s employees were paid to register voters.

Mary Blackwell, a volunteer for the League of Women Voters in Okaloosa County, said she was registering voters this month at Northwest Florida State College. Sitting nearby was a man who said he was registering voters for the Republican Party of Florida. The man told her he received $12 an hour but had to bring in at least 10 forms to get paid.

Paul Lux, the election supervisor for Okaloosa County, a Republican who is still combing through registration forms in his office, said he was told by several “concerned citizens,” including Ms. Blackwell, that the employees were being paid for the number of forms they brought back.

In Florida, it is illegal to pay someone per registration form.

“I told my friends in the party then that paying people to do this was a bad idea, and it almost inevitably leads to problems,” Mr. Lux said. “Unfortunately, I was not proven wrong.”

Fred Petti, a lawyer for Strategic Allied, said the employees were paid only by the hour, with no quota attached. He added that they also were instructed to register anyone from any political party, not just the Republican Party.

Previous investigations of Mr. Sproul’s operations focused on efforts to register only Republicans or allegations that Democratic forms were torn up. Mr. Petti also said that Mr. Sproul cooperated with the Palm Beach County election supervisor to find out who was at fault and has offered to do the same with other election supervisors.

In Palm Beach County, one person was responsible for the fraudulent forms, officials said. Mr. Petti said he does not yet know how widespread the problem is in other counties.

Election supervisors said they have come across forms with handwriting that did not match previous registration forms, bogus addresses and other identifiers like driver’s license numbers that appeared to be invalid. But in other cases, the forms were just incomplete, which does not constitute fraud.

“Until we see what the cards are, it’s hard for us to comment,” Mr. Petti said.

Mark Anderson, the Bay County supervisor, said he has found eight questionable forms in his county, but he is looking for more. The forms had either unchecked boxes for party affiliation or signatures that looked different from previous ones. He said he had also received calls from voters who said they had not changed their party affiliation, although it appeared they had. “I don’t believe there is going to be massive numbers,” Mr. Anderson said.

Election supervisors are able to pinpoint the group responsible for the questionable forms because of a 2011 state law that tightened rules on voter registration groups. The law, which sparked lawsuits and controversy, requires groups to register with the state and have their registration number on the forms they distribute.

A provision that required groups to turn in registration forms within 48 hours was struck down in court this year. “The Republican Legislature was beaten up pretty badly, partially by myself,” Mr. Lux said. “But they seem to have been doing something to improve the process.”

[trish]

Today is the first of October. Only about a month until the election. After that you won't be bothered with this thread anymore. But please, until then make sure you, your family, your friends and neighbors have all the necessary documents and ID's in order so that you can vote on November 4th. Or get it together and vote before by absentee ballot. Don't be silenced by the obstacles that have been deliberately placed between you and the ballot box. VOTE.

Usually, I just respond to other people's threads, but there's something important that needs addressed.

If you live in Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Kansas, Lousiana, Michigan, Pennsylvania, South Dakota or Tennessee and want to vote this year, make sure you have current valid photo ID, as it is now required in these states. Make sure your friends and family have ID as well.

This is especially critical if you live in one of these states that could go either way in this year's election. (Let's face it, we already know how Georgia, Kansas and Tennessee will be voting)

Also, if you live in Florida, make sure you are still registered to vote. They've been purging people from the rolls for political reasons.

Pass it along.

(Yes, this should probably go in the politics forum, but who actually goes there?)

[Faldur]

Can we keep the bile from the political forum in the political forum. This is a thread about voter Id, how about we keep it to the topic.

The encouragement for people to vote is awesome, that message should be non-political. It's what a person/citizen can and should do to make sure they're opinion is counted.