And this time, Drudge didn't even have to make up the story!
In Oregon, the state Attorney General's Office launched an investigation Wednesday after registration collector Mike Johnson admitted to Portland's KGW-TV that he "might have" destroyed forms completed by Democrats.
"This is a violation of the law," Oregon Secretary of State Bill Bradbury told the Associated Press. " . . . I have never in my five years as secretary of state ever seen an allegation like the one that came up tonight."
Sproul disputed both reports. He said there is no record of the Oregon man working for his company. And he described the Nevada man as a disgruntled employee who went to the media after being fired.
Through the RNC, Sproul also released affidavits from his Las Vegas supervisors denying that any registration forms were trashed.
Russell, a self-described Republican, said he was terminated from Voter Outreach of America after complaining that his pay was cut because he signed up voters from all parties. He said a female supervisor announced, "You guys have been bringing in Democrats. We told you not to. This time we're going to dock your pay."
Moments later, Russell said, he watched as Democrat cards were destroyed: "I've got proof that they did it. I saw them torn up, and she had her assistant wrestle them from me."
Poleaxe wrote:Our republic is going to take a real black eye during this election.
It really is pretty extraordinary to witness the slime that is flowing (on both sides).
To continue Exodor's story (I've posted it elsewhere but since he started a thread dedicated to it) the firm mentioned in his article is in trouble loads of places.
Found the following links which all seem to point to the same company that is suspected of tearing up Democratic voter registration forms in Las Vegas. It has set up registration drives in Pennsylvania, Minnesota, Michigan, Ohio, West Virginia, Florida and Nevada and is accused of the same things in most if not all of these states. Sproul & Associates is a Republican consulting firm run by Nathan Sproul, former head of the Arizona Republican party and Arizona Christian Coalition.
Nevada:
Voters Outreach of America AKA America Votes tears up Democratic voter registration forms in Nevada.
Oregon:
Company claiming affiliation with non-partisan 'America Votes' to register voters in Oregon is actually GOP consulting firm Sproul & Associates, Inc.
West Virginia and Pennsylvania:
Sproul & Associates AKA America Votes workers in WV and PA refuse to register Kerry voters.
Oregon
Democrats in Oregon have complained that canvassers for Arizona based Sproul & Associates have been pressuring residents to register as Republicans so that they can get paid.
Arizona
Arizona Nader campaign was assisted in its petition drive by an unlikely figure: the ultra-conservative former executive director of the Arizona Republican Party, Nathan Sproul.
About Sproul:
Good background story on Sproul and his political track record, cached on Google.
The link:
Here is the direct link between Sproul and Voters Outreach of America.
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.
Good stuff, so far. But the reader then asks the key question -- who is paying for these efforts?
The answer?
KLAS-TV, Las Vegas:
"The company has been largely, if not entirely funded, by the Republican National Committee."
CareerBuild.com listing:
Help wanted ad for Voters Outreach of America says "Paid for by the Republican National Committee".
The Republican Party is funding these efforts. The link is direct and unambiguous.
Meanwhile, Bob Johnson has got a diary with more information on this developing scandal. As he says,
[C]ritical is the fact that Sproul and his organization misrepresented themselves to voters as a legitimate, nonpartisan GOTV organization. That is fraud, my friends.
My blog (mostly photos): Fort Ephemera - My Flickr Photostream
“You only get one sunrise and one sunset a day, and you only get so many days on the planet. A good photographer does the math and doesn’t waste either.” ―Galen Rowell
Poleaxe wrote:Our republic is going to take a real black eye during this election.
I think most would agree the republic took a real black eye during the last election. This year is going to be much worse.
I'm very, very, very glad that I can cast my vote during the last few weeks of October, and that I'll be spending election week in the wilds of Southern Utah. Hopefully by the time I return everything will be sorted out.
Dude you feel like chopped liver? I responded to your post with the expanded info that I posted here plus I included two heart-wrenching personal anecdotes that I hoped would share some good ole' sage wisdom and not one person has commented on my touching stories. I mean come on I got pwn3d by the former head of the Republican party in my county, and well uh yeah nm.
My blog (mostly photos): Fort Ephemera - My Flickr Photostream
“You only get one sunrise and one sunset a day, and you only get so many days on the planet. A good photographer does the math and doesn’t waste either.” ―Galen Rowell
Maybe the fucked-upedness of this election will get people off their asses to FIX THE BROKEN SYSTEM of voting in the US, or maybe to realize that it was designed to be undemocratic.
But, I said that when the election was stolen in 2000, and what happened? Electronic voting all but ensured that this will happen now and during every election from now on.
There's no hope for the US. And by US I mean us.
We need radical reformation of our voting system. Every single precinct in America should have to follow federal standards for voting machines. Electronic machines are fine, so long as they produce confirmable printed receipts for use during recounts. The software for such voting machines should be open sourced and publicly available. No trade secrets when it comes to voting.
Everyone with a driver's license should be automatically registered to vote every year. You should be able to, apart from that, register to vote up to and including during the vote itself at the polling location.
Partisan registration should be disallowed for this very reason -- destruction of registration cards. Everyone involved with this company should be sent to jail immediately, any candidate with any connection to this company should be immediately removed from the ballot. Instead in order to become a member of a party folks should contact the party itself, which then provides voter partisan rolls to election workers in precincts for primary purposes.
Election day should be a federal holiday, with double-pay overtime for anyone who has to work, in order to give people time to vote. Those who do have to work should receive a minimum two hour lunch break for voting purposes.
And all of this should be federal, with absolutely no variance from state to state.
Wed Oct 20, 2004 1:17 am
Zarathud: The sad thing is that Barak Obama is a very intelligent and articulate person, even when you disagree with his views it's clear that he's very thoughtful. I would have loved to see Obama in a real debate.
Me: Wait 12 years, when he runs for president. :-)
Fireball1244 wrote: Everyone involved with this company should be sent to jail immediately, any candidate with any connection to this company should be immediately removed from the ballot.
Election day should be a federal holiday, with double-pay overtime for anyone who has to work, in order to give people time to vote. Those who do have to work should receive a minimum two hour lunch break for voting purposes.
Kick ASS! Oregon has a two-week "election day" due to vote by mail. The last two weeks of October are going to RULE!
Fireball1244 wrote:Everyone involved with this company should be sent to jail immediately, any candidate with any connection to this company should be immediately removed from the ballot.
Could they at least have a trial? Or is it really immediately to the gaol with them?
They can wait for their trial in jail. They should not be let near anything regarding the election. These people are screwing with the election, trying to disenfranchise people. Frankly, that should be a felony punishment for which falls just shy of execution and/or life imprisonment. No one who tears up a voter's registration card should ever be allowed near a polling place, political campaign or other government entity again.
Wed Oct 20, 2004 1:17 am
Zarathud: The sad thing is that Barak Obama is a very intelligent and articulate person, even when you disagree with his views it's clear that he's very thoughtful. I would have loved to see Obama in a real debate.
Me: Wait 12 years, when he runs for president. :-)
Fireball1244 wrote:Everyone involved with this company should be sent to jail immediately, any candidate with any connection to this company should be immediately removed from the ballot.
They can wait for their trial in jail.
Are we really going to throw out all the rules of our criminal justice system over this issue?
Last edited by Fireball on Wed Jun 24, 2015 1:51 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Wed Oct 20, 2004 1:17 am
Zarathud: The sad thing is that Barak Obama is a very intelligent and articulate person, even when you disagree with his views it's clear that he's very thoughtful. I would have loved to see Obama in a real debate.
Me: Wait 12 years, when he runs for president. :-)
Fireball1244 wrote:Many people await their trials in jail.
I think that f-cking with the election like this -- DENYING PEOPLE THEIR VOTE -- is so immeasurably serious and so incalculably evil that we cannot afford to have them on the street where they could possibly impact this election any further. They are a threat to the integrity to our democracy.
People who await their trial in jail are either a flight risk or a physical danger to the community (although I did once get a guy detained pre-trial on the theory that he was a compulsive mail thief and was an economic danger -- but there the guy had re-offended while on pre-trial release three times already).
I was also commenting on the "everyone involved with this company should be sent to jail immediately," which seems a little harsh on the secretarial staff.
This shit is outrageous. But could we talk about credible responses?
Fireball1244 wrote:Many people await their trials in jail.
I think that f-cking with the election like this -- DENYING PEOPLE THEIR VOTE -- is so immeasurably serious and so incalculably evil that we cannot afford to have them on the street where they could possibly impact this election any further. They are a threat to the integrity to our democracy.
And once again an example of the hypocracy of the far left. Human rights, legal rights, all that goes out the door when the issue is not to their liking.
Give me facism any day over leftist totalitarianism, it's at least honest.
Last edited by Fireball on Wed Jun 24, 2015 1:51 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Wed Oct 20, 2004 1:17 am
Zarathud: The sad thing is that Barak Obama is a very intelligent and articulate person, even when you disagree with his views it's clear that he's very thoughtful. I would have loved to see Obama in a real debate.
Me: Wait 12 years, when he runs for president. :-)
Fireball1244 wrote:Many people await their trials in jail.
I think that f-cking with the election like this -- DENYING PEOPLE THEIR VOTE -- is so immeasurably serious and so incalculably evil that we cannot afford to have them on the street where they could possibly impact this election any further. They are a threat to the integrity to our democracy.
And once again an example of the hypocracy of the far left. Human rights, legal rights, all that goes out the door when the issue is not to their liking.
Give me facism any day over leftist totalitarianism, it's at least honest.
Where I am being a totalitarian? They still deserve a trial, I do not think they should be presumed guilty. But the nature of the accusation is SO IMMEASURABLY GRAVE that those directly involved should be considered a threat to the community and more importantly the security of this election and should be put in such a position as that they cannot in any way impact the election further, other than through the filling out and submission of their own ballots.
If Democrats get caught trashing/tearing up Republican voter registration cards, then the same goes for them.
Wed Oct 20, 2004 1:17 am
Zarathud: The sad thing is that Barak Obama is a very intelligent and articulate person, even when you disagree with his views it's clear that he's very thoughtful. I would have loved to see Obama in a real debate.
Me: Wait 12 years, when he runs for president. :-)
That would make sense, Ex, since these guys are trying to get America drunk and stick it in her butt.
Wed Oct 20, 2004 1:17 am
Zarathud: The sad thing is that Barak Obama is a very intelligent and articulate person, even when you disagree with his views it's clear that he's very thoughtful. I would have loved to see Obama in a real debate.
Me: Wait 12 years, when he runs for president. :-)
Fireball1244 wrote:That would make sense, Ex, since these guys are trying to get America drunk and stick it in her butt.
I thinka stiff penalty and permanent revocation of voting rights is appropriate in cases like this for those directly, but jailing everyone who works for the company would be like jailing all Enron employees for the misdeeds of their superiors.
Yeah, I was out of line when I said everyone who worked there.
Now, everyone associated with these incidents, I stand by my statement.
Wed Oct 20, 2004 1:17 am
Zarathud: The sad thing is that Barak Obama is a very intelligent and articulate person, even when you disagree with his views it's clear that he's very thoughtful. I would have loved to see Obama in a real debate.
Me: Wait 12 years, when he runs for president. :-)
Exodor wrote:Is tampering with voter registration a felony?
Yes, if it's a federal election. There are a variety of statutes applicable but the one that comes to mind would carry a sentence up to ten years. I'm not sure that's just short enough of the death penalty to satisfy Kirk, but federal time is hard.
As for the laws in Oregon, which has primary jurisdiction over this, you tell me. Don't you live there?
Edit: I see that's one of Enough's stories, but at least I hyperlinked mine.
Dude, all of mine are hyperlinked at the Daily Kos portal to this story I hyperlinked above. If you had clicked that link you would notice there are individual hyperlinks for each allegation, including the heroic librarian story. Although you do get mad props from me (or really your wife does I suppose ) for linking to an actual ALA link, mine just went to the Mail Tribune story on it. Am I going to have to call in Superhiro on you people to do an illustrated guide on attention to detail?
My blog (mostly photos): Fort Ephemera - My Flickr Photostream
“You only get one sunrise and one sunset a day, and you only get so many days on the planet. A good photographer does the math and doesn’t waste either.” ―Galen Rowell
