Posted on 10/22/2004 12:34:44 PM PDT by Leroy S. Mort
Substitute teacher Adam Banse wanted a summer job with flexible hours, so he signed up to knock on doors in suburban Minneapolis and register people to vote. He quit after two hours.
``They said if you bring back a bunch of Democratic cards, you'll be fired,'' Banse contends. ``At that point, I said, `Whoa. Something's wrong here.'''
He isn't alone. In several battleground states across the country, a consulting firm funded by the Republican National Committee has been accused of deceiving would-be voters and destroying Democratic voter registration cards.
Arizona-based Sproul & Associates is under investigation in Oregon and Nevada over claims that canvassers hired by the company were instructed to register only Republicans and to get rid of registration forms completed by Democrats.
``We treat these complaints very seriously,'' said Oregon Secretary of State Bill Bradbury. The Democratic office-holder said three complaints were filed with election officials throughout the state. He declined to provide details, citing the continuing investigation.
Nathan Sproul, a former head of Arizona's Republican Party and the state's Christian Coalition branch, denies any wrongdoing and accuses Democrats of making things up.
``This is all about making accusations,'' Sproul said Thursday. ``They allege fraud where none exists and get the media to cover it.''
Republican National Committee spokeswoman Heather Layman responded that her party accepts all voters, and she accused the Democratic Party of operating under this mandate: ``If no sign of voter fraud exists, make it up, manipulate the media into covering baseless charges and spread fear.''
Sproul declined to name the states in which his company conducted registration drives. His political consulting firm was founded last year and has received nearly $500,000 from the RNC since July, according to federal election records.
Former canvassers such as Banse have come forward in West Virginia, Pennsylvania, Nevada and Oregon in the past two weeks alleging they were told to register only Republicans and to ``walk away'' from people who said they intended to vote for Democrat John Kerry.
Some said Democratic registration forms had been thrown out or ripped up.
It is illegal to tamper with voter registration cards, which are numbered and issued by local election officials. In some states, including Oregon, such acts are felonies.
Eric Russell of Las Vegas told The Associated Press that he watched a Sproul supervisor tear up eight to 10 registration forms completed by Democrats and managed to grab some of the shredded documents as evidence. State officials are investigating his claim.
Russell said that Voters Outreach of America, the name under which Sproul employees operated in Nevada and other states, owes him hundreds of dollars for registering residents but refuses to pay him.
Sproul called Russell simply a disgruntled employee.
Prompted by Russell's accusations, Clark County Democrats unsuccessfully went to court last week to try to persuade a state judge to reopen voter registration in their county, which encompasses Las Vegas.
In West Virginia, Lisa Bragg said she refused a sorely needed $9-an-hour job to register voters after attending an orientation session conducted by Sproul employees.
Like Banse in Minnesota, she said canvassers were discouraged from registering Democrats and were told to misrepresent themselves as poll takers.
Bragg, who filed a complaint earlier this week with the West Virginia secretary of state's office, said Friday that canvassers were given a script that read at the bottom, ``Our goal is to register Republicans.''
She called the registration drive dishonest, adding, ``I believe everyone has the right to vote. Even though I'm a Democrat, I would have registered Republicans to vote.''
In Pennsylvania this week, former Sproul canvassers said they had been instructed to not register Democrats. About 40 to 50 also complained they had not been paid.
In Pittsburgh, library patrons protested that Sproul employees were pressuring people to register as Republicans at tables set up outside a Carnegie Library branch.
A similar incident was reported in Oregon in September, when the manager of Medford library headquarters refused a Sproul request to register voters after learning the firm was affiliated with Republicans.
yep ..... just part of the misson ...... keep the head up and look around ..... know they will do anything to get power.......
There was a judge on Fox saying Republicans don't have to register Dems and Dems don't have to register Repubs. There's no law stating you have to register both.
Exactly. The DNC had democrats sign up for Republican campaigns just to sabotage them. Anyone can pull up the strategy from news articles.
Whether the DNC is stoking the fire or not, it's just plain dumb for Republican groups to hand the Democrats this kind of ammo to use against Bush. These small-time dopes make the whole party look bad. Don't cheat!
Yep... Here comes the pre-emptive strike.
This is so disgusting it's just outrageous.
Democrats are sub-human.
You make a big assumption that these stories are factual. but then you know what they say about "assume"...
This is not all that uncommon a practice. In Uber Liberal Santa Cruz, California, there are people year round on the street registering ONLY Democrats.
Good catch.
Having faced this before, it is my understanding...and in fact I think I heard Judge Napolitano (sp) explain this same fact on TV the other day....namely, you do not HAVE TO accept registration cards from Democrats.
The point is, do not take possession of them. If someone either tells you they are a Democrate or fills out a voter registration card, even if you gave them the card, and checks Democrate. Simply do not ACCEPT it. They are free to take get it to the county elections office however they choose to do so. Once you take possession of a filled out registration card, you are under an affirmative obligation to get it in.
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The Left tries to make goodness bad, black, white, right, wrong and wrong, right. The only voter fraud will be coming from them, but their strategy, as always, is to be on the offensive, and offend everybody while they're at it.
The story disproves the title. There is no fraud taking place!
"Substitute teacher" is code for Democrat infiltrator.
Yeah, sure. I believe a member of a teacher's union would be working for the GOP.
Sure.
I smell fraud on his part.
Adam Banse=Leftwing mole!!!
Let the Dims squeal. The DOJ had better kick their cheatin' asses anyway.
How many Democrat groups have been charged with voter fraud?
Getting the Vote Out
Wednesday, October 13, 2004.
During the 2004 election cycle, the Republican Party has funneled but a few drops of its deluge of dough -- $125,058, chump change -- to a Phoenix, Arizona, outfit called Sproul & Associates. S&A's record is not exactly clean, and, as you can see, its interests are not limited to Phoenix. I have a friend who did a day's work in Minnesota for these clowns. His name is Adam Banse. We go back along way, so when I read about voter registration shenanigans, I remembered he told me awhile back he had done some work for Republicans, and we had a talk today.
Marc: So how's disenfranchising the masses going for ya?
Banse: Difference between me and them -- I registered 8 voters -- all Republicans or people undecided. I then used the information I gleaned from my time with them and went to the Kerry-Edwards campaign headquarters where I sat down with Ted Irgens, the campaign organizer in Minnesota and told him everything I knew. I met with the group one more time after that and again called Ted and told him what I knew.
Marc: Did the rotten Republicans at least pay well?
Banse: Incredibly well. $13 an hour plus $3 for every Nader, undecided or Bush vote. I made $60 in 2 hours. No shit.
Marc: You want to tell the story yourself....
Banse: I was told to not get Kerry supporters to register -- they said we'd be fired if we did, but they also said they were obligated by law to turn them in. It's a felony in Minnesota to alter or throw away voter registrations. This state has a history of incredibly ethical elections. We'll see about this year....
Marc: How did you find the job?
Banse: I'll shoot you the e-mail I got from a temp agency that I had never been employed with.
[Original Message] From: DFG Clerical Staffing Desk Date: 9/23/2004 3:13:41 PM Subject: Want to earn up to $30/hr for part-time work?
Help! Help!! Help!!! Do you - or does anyone you know - need some extra cash? Dolphin Staffing has been contracted to find 150 people to go door-to-door and/or to public locations to register voters. Flexible hours from 9 AM - 8:30 PM. Work as much or as little as you want in the next 4-5 weeks.
Base pay is $10/hour. For the first person you register in an hour, you get a $1 bonus. For each additional registration within the same hour, you get a $3 bonus per person. On average, people register 1-4 voters/hour. That's $11-$20/hour!
Employees currently working full-time (40 hours per week) or Dolphin Staffing are not eligible for this offer. All other interested candidates MUST ATTEND a one-hour rientation. Orientation sessions are held twice daily. Call Dolphin Staffing at 612-338-7581 to find out when the next one is scheduled.
This initiative is funded by the Republican Party, but supporters of any party are more than welcome to make some extra cash!
Marc: So you get this and then what?
Banse: I called the number and they got me in contact with this guy named Ben.
Marc: Who is Ben?
Banse: Some kid working for the party, so I thought. When he called me the caller ID said Republican National, but I was paid by "Sproul and Associates," a P.R. firm out of Arizona -- I looked it up.
Marc: So then what?
Banse: I went to the temp agency, filled out some paperwork and called Ben. He told me to come in for an orientation that night and I did. When I arrived at this little rented office, I saw that it was littered with Bush-Cheney paraphernalia. I chuckled internally. There were about 15 of us there, most of them coming from another employment agency that caters to blue-collar types (I came from one that caters to white collar employees) and I'd say the group was half African American, which surprised me considering this was a Republican-backed deal.
Marc: Did you hear any politics from the other workers?
Banse: Just one, a kid in the "Carlson School" at the U of M. The Carlson school is the business school -- I know, shocking. The rest acted like they couldn't care one way or the other. Ben was frothing at the mouth, though.
Marc: Describe orientation.
Banse: They handed out a packet entitled, in big, bold letters, "THE LAW." It basically told us what we could and could not do. He then gave us a script that we had to write down -- it was not already printed out for us.
Marc: He read it? Read it to you?
Banse: Yeah. It went something like this:
Everyone is supposed to wear a Bush-Cheney sticker -- to attract Bush-Cheney supporters and repel Kerry ones. We were told to introduce ourselves by first name to passerbys at malls in front of stores, wherever we could get away with it. He even told us that we could stand out in front of stores, but that it wasn't necessarily legal. He told us that if they told us to leave we had to leave, but to stand there as long as we could get away with it. He also told us how to sneak into apartment buildings and that it wasn't legal, but a good way to pick up registrations and you didn't hear it from him.
Anyway, we're supposed to introduce ourselves and then ask people if they plan on voting in the election if yes, then are they supporting Bush, if no -- walk away from them! Don't make eye contact or discuss politics. If they say they're undecided, try signing them up, if they're Bush-Cheney supporters, sign 'em up. If they're Kerry supporters, and they insist sign them up, but try to get them to send the card in on their own -- that way you're not held responsible for it and you won't get in trouble (Ben said he wanted a 9-1 Bush-Kerry ration, minimum). If they said they're Nader supporters, sign 'em up because Ben said (and I'm not making this up) a vote for Nader is a vote for Bush. That's about it. He told us not to get in political discussions with any Kerry supporters because we didn't want to draw attention to ourselves.
Marc: Describe your first day on the job.
Banse: It was unsupervised. I told him I'd be going to some car dealerships in Coon Rapids, Minnesota (about 40 minutes from Ben's office) to sign some people up. Knowing that the UAW supports Bush (how sick is that -- a union supporting Bush? nice union leadership) I thought it'd be easy pickings. It was. About half said they were undecided.
Oh wait, I forgot to tell you. ... Ben said they had a "voter fraud" person calling to confirm each person's identity (they told us that they were doing it to make sure we weren't forging cards), when these people were called they were asked who they support. I signed up my brother, sister and brother-in-law and they all lied and said, "Bush."
Marc: Nice touch. Did you ever see Ben interacting with higher ups?
Banse: No.
Marc: Not even a phone call?
Banse: He received at least 10 calls while I was there. The kid was kind of overwhelmed. There was a young gal in his office with the same job. I got the feeling they were grating on each other's nerves.
Marc: Next question: So....
Banse: I went to everyone I could find (except the customers) and asked people if they were registered voters, if they weren't I'd sign 'em up. IF they happened to be Democrats I'd already arranged it with the party to drop those forms off with them.
Marc: What was the party's reaction? Had you called someone there or just plotted it?
Banse: The first people were shocked -- shocked. They gave me Ted's number. He didn't seem all that surprised. He seemed more interested in the Nader comment. I took the cards to Ben the following day and told him some bullshit about why I couldn't do it anymore.
Marc: So you only put in one day?
Banse: Yeah. I wasn't willing to sell my soul, for crying out loud. I haven't even cashed the check and am not sure I will.
Marc: So how's disenfranchising the masses going for ya?
Banse: Difference between me and them -- I registered 8 voters -- all Republicans or people undecided. I then used the information I gleaned from my time with them and went to the Kerry-Edwards campaign headquarters where I sat down with Ted Irgens, the campaign organizer in Minnesota and told him everything I knew. I met with the group one more time after that and again called Ted and told him what I knew.
________________
Gee, a plant. Whoda thunkit?
The DOJ under Ashcroft will simply not prosecute for this alleged crime.
No idea how many Dem groups have been charged. But this idiot is a fraud for sure!
Sooner or later some Dems are going to get a surprise from the younger, tattooed, conservative punks like me, causing trouble for them!
... rat bastards...
Note that this article has no byline. As far as I'm concerned this is junk. The content didn't ring true so I thought it would be usefull to read past articles by this journalist. Whoever wrote this didn't put their name to it, so until there is a byline I will assume that it's the work of Chad Clanton or Joe Lockhart.
more.
DNC innoculation
If Chad Clanton or Joe Lockhart didn't write this it was probably the work of some teenage moveon enthusiast, posting on their personal netcsape page.
Substitute teacher Adam Banse wanted a summer job with flexible hours, so he signed up to knock on doors in suburban Minneapolis and register people to vote. He quit after two hours.
“They said if you bring back a bunch of Democratic cards, you'll be fired,” Banse contends. At that point, I said, ,“Whoa. Something's wrong here.”
I am a substitute teacher in Northern PA.
I am an NEA member.
I am working hard to re-elect President Bush.
The head of the local Republican get out the vote effort is also a teacher.
So this is the pathetic attempt at "see, both sides are guilty of it, therefore, look no more at Democrat vote fraud"......
Good PR says, accept all reg cards no matter what.
In West Virginia, Lisa Bragg said she refused a sorely needed $9-an-hour job to register voters after attending an orientation session conducted by Sproul employees.
Just another example of bad, mean republicans preventing those who desire to eat to take advantage of an honest job.
Do I hear violins in the background... :D
I would say that this article, written by an anonymous journalist, could be a serious issue if it is found that DNC staffers are planting false 'pre-emptive attack' articles on the internet. This looks like it was written by an overzealous DNC staffer.
Democrats would be lying through their teeth (so what'w new about that, right?) to claim their policy is any different.
ANYONE who is not brain dead in this country knows Democrats are not going to assist ANY Republican in ANYTHING, let alone registering to vote.
This sounds like a total non-story spun to sound like something it isn't...IOW, the propaganda arm of the Democratic Party doing it's designated part.
As an ex-Oregonian long involved with the Republican
Central Committee, and Precinct Chairwoman, I say these
accusations are a pure Commie Oregon concoction.
It's good to be outa there!
Investigate... indict as appropriate. If there are repub organizations committing votor fraud, those responsible shoud be held accountable. It should not be tolerated. If it's a case of false acusation, then those responsible should be sued or indicted as appropriate.
This is part of an organized left-wing campaign.
"Substitute teacher" tells you everything you need to know.
He got the job just to make the accusation, then quit 2 hours later.
This is just like the beatnik longhair in Nevada who ripped up Democrat registrations then tried to blame it on his employer. I just wonder which Democrat 527 is behind this campaign.
Yeah, here it comes...but payback is a Theresa.
How many articles have been written about Dem fraud? Never seen them on Yahoo...
Good job on the link!
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"I am a substitute teacher in Northern PA.
I am an NEA member.
I am working hard to re-elect President Bush.
The head of the local Republican get out the vote effort is also a teacher."
You can quit the NEA and have your dues directed to a 501 (c) 3 charity of your choice. Otherwise you're volunteering for the GOP to cancel out the funds you indirectly give to the Dems.
is there really a market for voter registration canvasors? i have some door to door exp, and what a way to make some $$$ by setting up my own operation.
of course ......
As a substitute, my dues are only thirty-five dollars a year.
Being a member allows me to go to faculty meetings and express my point-of-view.
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