The Republican National Committee has fired a consulting firm it had hired to register Republican voters over allegations of that the firm turned in 106 potentially fraudulent registrations in Florida, NBC News' Michael Isikoff reports. Over the last few years, Republicans have pushed for stricter rules like showing a valid photo ID at polling stations to combat voter fraud, under the suspicion that lots of people are out there criminally and fraudulently voting. As it happens, this case, Isikoff writes, "appears to be one of the first to have led to a criminal inquiry in this year's election."
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The RNC has paid Strategic Allied Consulting $2.9 million this year, but terminated the contract after the elections supervisor in Palm Beach County discovered the suspected fake registrations, some of which listed home addresses as those of a gas station and a car dealership. Iskoff reports:
Out of 304 Republican voter-registration forms recently dropped off by a firm employee at a small "satellite office" of the Palm Beach elections office, 106 were flagged as potentially fraudulent -- including "a lot" with "similar looking" signatures and others with apparently phony addresses, [Palm Beach election supervisor Susan] Bucher said in an interview.
The allegations are under investigation by the Palm Beach State Attorney's Office.