Press Releases

(DETROIT) – Today, the top Democratic members on committees responsible for elections, the Judiciary, and Oversight sent a second letter to Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus calling on him to make clear the RNC’s associations with individuals and companies charged with acts of voter registration fraud in states across the country. This letter followed an earlier letter from the three ranking members sent to Chairman Priebus on October 02, 2012 in response to allegations of widespread voter registration fraud in Florida by a company tied to Nathan Sproul, a long-time Republican operative who has been dogged by accusations of voter registration fraud dating back at least to 2004.

The second letter comes hours after the Rockingham County Sheriff arrested Colin Small in Harrisonburg, VA, and charged him with 13 counts of voter registration fraud, including eight felony counts. Small reportedly works for PinPoint Staffing, a company hired by the Republican Party of Virginia. He was seen allegedly throwing completed voter registration forms into the trash, a crime in the Commonwealth of Virginia. His apparent employer - Pinpoint Staffing - is tied to the Florida voter registration fraud allegations in which more than 100 suspicious voter registration forms were turned in to local election officials in more than 10 counties. PinPoint is a regular subcontractor of Sproul’s company, Strategic Allied Consulting, to which the RNC has paid $3 million for “voter registration” efforts ahead of the November 6 election.  Small, the man arrested in Virginia, has claimed that he is working for the Republican National Committee itself.

Today’s letter calls on the RNC chairman to declare forthrightly “whether the RNC will cut all ties to PinPoint and all of Mr. Sproul’s various operations.”  The members point out, the RNC has previously claimed to have severed ties with Sproul’s operations after the Florida scandal broke but a spokesman confessed to the Los Angeles Times that “the registration operation that he assembled continued working under the supervision of party officials.”

Citing both the proximity to Election Day, now less than 17 days away, and the history of Americans who have given their lives in the fight for voting rights, from the Revolutionary War to the martyrs of the Civil Rights Movement, the Democratic members demanded answers and complete transparency from the Republican National Committee.

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