Forum Post: voter fraud in Colorado - which party ?

HuffPost's QuickRead... October 2, 2012 EDT denver The young woman in a video that was uploaded to YouTube more than a week ago who is seen registering voters in El Paso County, Colorado and admits to trying to only register voters who support Mitt Romney has been confirmed to be a former contract employee of Strategic Allied Consulting -- the firm run by longtime GOP consultant Nathan Sproul that is currently under investigation for possible voter fraud in three Florida counties.

Fox31's Eli Stoklos, who broke the story over the weekend, reported that the Colorado GOP has spent almost half its total budget -- nearly $500,000 -- with Strategic Allied Consulting while the Republican National Committee has dropped more than $3 million into Sproul's company this year to conduct voter registration drives in five swing states --
Colorado, Florida, Nevada, North Carolina and Virginia.

In the YouTube video a person exits a Safeway grocery store while recording a young woman who is registering voters outside the store. The young woman asks the exiting grocery shopper, "Are you voting for Romney or Obama?"

The shopper responds, "Well, wait, I thought you were registering voters a minute ago."

To which the young woman replies, "I am." The shopper recording then asks, "Well, who are you registering? All voters?"

"Well, I'm actually trying to register people for a particular party. Because we're out here in support of Romney, actually," the young woman registering voters says.

__"And who is paying you for this?" The shopper asks.

"We're working for the County Clerk's Office," the young woman replies with some hesitation and confusion.__

The El Paso County Clerk and Recorder Wayne Williams disavowed the young woman's statements that she was registering voters on behalf of Williams' office. "The statement made in this video is both unfortunate and inaccurate," Williams said in a statement. "My office does not and will not engage in partisan voter registration. It is the duty of the Clerk’s office to ensure that elections are conducted in a fair and honest manner, this includes allowing any one to register to vote regardless of their political party affiliation."

Republicans in El Paso County claimed that the video was recorded more than a month ago by a Democratic "campaign operative" and has been released now to damage the Romney campaign. But, Christy Lelait, Chairman for the El Paso County Democrats denies that charge to KOAA. "It's an interesting charge. I don't know of any campaign operatives here in El Paso County and I know for certain that the woman who shot this video is not a campaign operative, she's a volunteer with several different organizations including the El Paso Democratic Party and she's also a precinct chair."

In Florida, NBC News reported that elections officials discovered 108 potentially fraudulent registration forms submitted by Sproul's consulting firm with suspected phony signatures and home addresses "that matched those of a gas station, a medical building and a Land Rover dealership."

A spokeswoman for Romney's campaign, seeking to distance Romney's team from the fallout of the allegations, told NBC News, "We used this vendor for signature gathering services during the primary but have not used them since 2011."

However, Sproul was quoted by the Associated Press back in February saying that he was "an Arizona political consultant who is working for Romney's campaign."

A Romney campaign spokesperson told The Huffington Post that this year campaign has used the firm only for office space and paid it accordingly. When asked to comment on Sproul's reported role as a political consultant to the campaign, the spokesperson insisted that the campaign has not used the "vendor" since 2011.

Sproul's firm has been tied to fraud allegations before and has been accused of shredding Democratic registration forms during the last several elections across multiple states.