Month: September 2012

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Orlando Sentinel: Suspicious voter registration forms found in 10 Florida counties

-By Matea Gold, Joseph Tanfani and Melanie Mason

September 28, 2012- 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.

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Reuters: Florida officials face new legal challenge over voter purge

-By Michael Peltier

September 27, 2012- Voter protection groups said on Thursday Florida election officials had reneged on an agreement to ease up on efforts to purge non-U.S. citizens from voter rolls and accused the Republican-led administration of trying to intimidate voters.

Earlier this month, voting groups had dropped a legal challenge to a state purge of voter lists after Florida election officials said they had greatly reduced the number of potentially ineligible voters due to errors on an original list.

But on Wednesday, Department of State officials sent a new list of 198 names to county election supervisors culled from a Department of Homeland Security's database that tracks residency status.

The new purge effort was "not within the spirit of our agreement," said Katherine Culliton-Gonzalez, director of voter protection for Advancement Project, a Washington D.C.-based racial justice advocacy group. "It creates intimidation and confusion and the state knows very well this is going to get some eligible voters."

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The Brad Blog: FL GOP Fires Romney Consultant’s Voter Registration Firm After Fraudulent Forms Reported In Palm Beach County

Firm owned by notorious GOP operative Nathan Sproul, accused of destroying Democratic registration forms in years past, hired 'at request of RNC', still operating in several key swing states…

-By Brad Friedman

September 26, 2012- The Republican Party of Florida's top recipient of 2012 expenditures, a firm by the name of Strategic Allied Consulting, was just fired on Tuesday night, after more than 100 apparently fraudulent voter registration forms were discovered to have been turned in by the group to the Palm Beach County, FL Supervisor of Elections.

The firm appears to be another shell company of Nathan Sproul, a longtime, notorious Republican operative, hired year after year by GOP Presidential campaigns, despite being accused of shredding Democratic voter registration forms in a number of states over several past elections.

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Reuters: Sheldon Adelson Sets New US Political Donation Record- Report

September 24, 2012- U.S. billionaire casino magnate Sheldon Adelson has set a new record in political donations by giving $70 million to help Republicans in the 2012 elections, nearly triple the previous highest amount, according to news outlet Politico on Monday.

Adelson, 79-year-old chairman of Las Vegas Sands Corp , has come to symbolize a new era in U.S. campaign finance that affords great power to individual wealthy donors through unlimited-spending outside "Super PAC" groups. These groups finance millions of dollars worth of advertising on candidates' behalf.

In a rare interview with a mainstream media outlet, Adelson told Politico he planned to spend up to $100 million — "whatever it takes" — to defeat President Barack Obama on Nov. 6, a stance he also made to Forbes magazine in June.

According to disclosures filed with the Federal Election Commission, Adelson and his wife, Miriam, have contributed about $37 million, almost all of it to Super PACs backing Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney, primary rival Newt Gingrich and party peers running for seats in the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives.

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Huffington Post: Pennsylvania Voter ID Law In Jeopardy As Next Court Case Opens

-By Dan Froomkin

September 24, 2012- The state of Pennsylvania's ability to get every would-be voter a government-issued photo ID by Election Day will literally be on trial Tuesday.

The hearing before Commonwealth Judge Robert Simpson comes after the state Supreme Court last week instructed him to block a new law requiring ID at the polls unless he determines "that there will be no voter disenfranchisement" arising from its implementation.

Opponents of the law have said the state can't possibly prove that case, as the law's entire reason for existence is precisely to make it harder for the poor, members of minority groups, students, and the elderly to cast their ballots, and in that way suppress the Democratic vote.

Republican backers of the law have said it was intended to fight voter fraud. But in-person voter fraud — the only kind voter ID would reduce — is almost nonexistent.

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New York Times: Conservative ‘Super PACs’ Synchronize Their Messages

From the numbers they cite to the illustrations they use, some of the televised anti-Obama commercials developed for conservative political groups are indistinguishable except for the disclaimer saying who approved the message

-By Jeremy W. Peters

September 24, 2012- Independent political groups have long been the guerrilla warriors of presidential elections, tossing explosive advertisements into the middle of a campaign like hand grenades, with little regard for the strategy of the candidate they support.

But this year, in a tight race that leaves very little room for error, the conservative “super PACs” and other outside entities working to defeat President Obama have reached a consensus: Going off message is simply too risky.

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Politico: Sheldon Adelson: Inside the mind of the mega-donor

-By Mike Allen

September 23, 2012- LAS VEGAS — At the Republican National Convention in Tampa last month, casino magnate Sheldon Adelson got high-fives from strangers; entertained Karl Rove, Rudy Giuliani and George Pataki in his well-stocked luxury box; ate dinner with House Speaker John Boehner; and had a private meeting with House Majority Leader Eric Cantor.

Last week, Adelson got a front-row seat — and a shout-out from Mitt Romney — at a $1 million campaign fundraiser at a Vegas casino. Paul Ryan held a private meeting with Adelson four days after being named Romney’s running mate.

Worth just over $21 billion and now in the cross hairs of the Justice Department and the Securities and Exchange Commission, Adelson has made history: He is the first person to spend $70 million to sway a presidential election, and he plans to spend more — perhaps as much as $100 million — by Election Day. An estimated $20 million to $30 million of the giving went to groups that do not disclose their donors and had not been reported before.

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Excite News: Black women rally against voter ID laws

-By Suzanne Gamboa

September 21, 2012- WASHINGTON (AP) – Deidra Reese isn't waiting for people to come to her to find out whether they are registered to vote.

With iPad in hand, Reese is going to community centers, homes and churches in nine Ohio cities, looking up registrations to make sure voters have proper ID and everything else they need to cast ballots on Election Day.

"We are not going to give back one single inch. We have fought too long and too hard," said Reese, 45, coordinator of the Columbus-based Ohio Unity Coalition, an affiliate of the National Coalition on Black Civic Participation.

Reese is part of a cadre of black women engaged in a revived wave of voting rights advocacy four years after the historic election of the nation's first black president. Provoked by voting law changes in various states, they have decided to help voters navigate the system – a fitting role, they say, given that black women had the highest turnout of any group of voters in 2008.

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