10 Fla. counties report suspicious GOP voter sign-ups

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Michael WinterShare



A woman votes in Jupiter, Fla., in 2008. Officials announced this week they are examining 106 questionable voter registrations in Florida's Palm Beach County. (Photo: File photo by J. Pat Carter, AP)

6:58PM EST September 29. 2012 - At least 10 Florida counties have identified possibly fraudulent voter registration forms turned in by a firm working for the state's Republican Party, election officials said today.

Problems first emerged earlier this week in Palm Beach County with forms turned in by Strategic Allied Consulting, which the Republican National Committee (RNC) paid $3.1 million to register voters in Florida and six other swing states. Palm Beach prosecutors are examining 106 voter registration forms submitted by one Strategic Allied Consulting worker, some with apparently forged signatures.

Read what Strategic Allied says about the allegations and its "quality control."

Thursday, the RNC severed its ties to the Virginia firm and filed a voter-fraud complaint.

Florida GOP spokesman Brian Burgess told the Associated Press today, "We are doing what we can to find out how broad the scope is."

The Los Angeles Times reports that Florida election officials have identified suspicious voter registrations turned in by the state GOP in nine other counties -- Lee, Bay, Clay, Santa Rosa, Escambia, Okaloosa, Pasco, Miami-Dade and Duval.

Santa Rosa County elections officials found 100 problematic forms out of about 400 turned in by the state Republican Party. Most did not include Social Security numbers. Others had date of births that did not match the names. Some listed fake house numbers.

"It was that flagrant," elections supervisor Ann W. Bodenstein told the paper. "In no way did they look genuine."

"Anyone with any sense would have known there was something wrong," she said. "Most were changes in current registrations filed in the names of real voters, but signatures were spelled differently than the applicants' names."

Vicki Davis, president of the Florida State Association of Supervisors of Elections, told the Times the the number of suspicious applications was unusual.

"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.

Strategic Allied Consulting was also paid to work in Nevada, Colorado, North Carolina and Virginia. Republican officials in Ohio and Wisconsin had not yet paid the company money the RNC gave them for Strategic Allied's services.

The company is run by an Arizona-based conservative, Nathan Sproul, a former head of the state GOP. The Times writes that he "has been dogged by charges in the past that his employees destroyed Democratic registrations. No charges were ever filed."

In an interview Thursday, the Times writes, he told the paper that the Palm Beach problems were the result of one individual and that his firm had offered to help elections officials in other counties identify problems.

The Florida Democratic Party wants election officials to "revoke" the state GOP's ability to register voters. The deadline is Oct. 9 for the Nov. 6 election.

10 Fla. counties report suspicious GOP voter sign-ups