Voter Suppression by Republicans? Tell me something new.

           Strategic Allied Consulting (f/k/a Sproul and Associates) is a firm run by a Republican former state chairman. They committed voter fraud according to the admissions of a former employee. The modus operandi was to get voters to register with them, and then shred the voter registration applications of those who indicated a Democratic Party affiliation and turn in the Republicans’ applications. His company has been doing this since 2004 in several states. The Republican National Committee paid him $2 million to keep up the good work. 

           Sproul’s company also appeared to attempt to register voters with out-of-state addresses. Of course, canvassers who are paid by the application also turned in requests for voter registration for the usual suspects: Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck. 

            Naturally, Republicans are reacting with feigned shock and outrage. They are comparing their cheaters to Acorn, Inc. But there is no comparison.

            Acorn had its share of phony voter applications for cartoon characters. This will happen whenever people are paid to register voters according to the number of people they sign up. But note: there is no evidence that anyone ever tried to vote by using Mickey Mouse’s registration. Acorn also achieved undeserved notoriety because of a surreptitious video that was edited in a misleading way. A man dressed like a pimp, sought assistance in bringing under-age girls to this country from Mexico. What the moviemaker didn’t know was that as soon as he left the room, the Acorn worker called the police in Mexico.

            Strategic Allied Consulting, on the other hand, actually did try to influence the results of an election. When people who thought they had registered to vote show up at the polls, they are in for a rude surprise if they were self-declared Democrats. In Florida, one of the states where S.A.C. did their dastardly deeds, it doesn’t take many votes to influence an election.

            I blogged about Republicans being criminally convicted for efforts to illegally suppress the efforts of Democrats to vote nearly seven years ago at Do you think Republicans want fair elections?  Take a peek to see where I documented Republican crimes at the highest levels of the Bush-Cheney campaign.

            For now, it is sufficient to caution my faithful readers against the Republican strategm of proclaiming that there is a false equivalency between Strategic Allied Consulting and Acorn. If anyone tries to sell you that load of crap, spit in his eye …

“… and tell ’em Big Mitch sent ya!”