[h/t Kecko on Twitter]

Now, the true silly season begins. Here is a video shot by someone who saw a voter registration worker in front of her local supermarket. When she walked up the worker said she was "polling" for Obama or Romney, but admitted she asked the question because "[she] is only registering Romney voters." She also claimed to work for the County Clerk's office.

Brad Friedman did some digging:

As it turns out, the registration worker was not working for the El Paso County Clerk's office, according to responses sent to The BRAD BLOG by the CO Secretary of State's office as well as the El Paso County Clerk. Instead, she was a paid employee of the state Republican Committee, as confirmed by the local GOP Chairman. And, incredibly enough, both the Sec. of State and County Clerk, both Republicans, assert that what the registration worker is seen doing in the video, screening out potential voters based on who they might vote for, is absolutely legal in the state of Colorado...

All things that are legal are not necessarily ethical. When it comes to Republicans and voter registrations, ethics usually have very little to do with it.

Long-time readers might recall the posts Nicole Belle and I wrote about voter registration shenanigans in California in 2008 before the last general election. Indeed, the only conviction for voter fraud in California was committed by a Sproul associate by the name of Mark Jacoby, while running an operation to register people as Republican whether they wanted to be registered that way or not.

Behold, Jacoby rides again. Brad Friedman's report:

The Republican Party of Florida's top recipient of 2012 expenditures, a firm by the name of Strategic Allied Consulting, was just fired on Tuesday night, after more than 100 apparently fraudulent voter registration forms were discovered to have been turned in by the group to the Palm Beach County, FL Supervisor of Elections.

The firm appears to be another shell company of Nathan Sproul, a longtime, notorious Republican operative, hired year after year by GOP Presidential campaigns, despite being accused of shredding Democratic voter registration forms in a number of states over several past elections.

In Florida. The place where the League of Women Voters stopped registering voters because of the draconian penalties attached for registration forms submitted late, or found to have false information.

One might be tempted to look at the state Republican party, shake one's head, cluck a bit, and write it off to corruption at the state level. One would be wrong to do that. According to Friedman, the Republican National Committee told the Florida Republican Party to hire the firm to register Republican voters for the November election.

Look where else Sproul appears to be operating:

BlueNC reports, however, that, in addition to FEC campaign filings showing the NC Republican Party paid some $333,000 to Strategic Allied Consulting for services in that state in July, "There is evidence that similar operations are being conducted in Colorado, Florida and Virginia on behalf of the Republican Party."

Was the young worker in Colorado Springs hired by Strategic Allied Consulting for her work with the local GOP? The techniques described in the NC help wanted ads sound very familiar to what was seen on video tape in CO.

Those help wanted ads referred to:

"WANT TO HELP REPUBLICANS WIN IN NC?," reads one ad, "We are currently hiring self-motivated people to contact voters for the election. No experience needed! We are paying $13/per hour for this program."

"Are you interested in helping Mitt Romney win North Carolina?," reads another, "I am with the North Carolina Republican Party working with Voter Registration Projects and am looking for team members to help expand Republican voter registration."

From Brad's article, it appears that Sproul's shell firm has been paid $2,000,000 by the Florida Republican Party, and at least $333,000 by the North Carolina Republican party. These payments came after Sproul's firm was hired by Mitt Romney's campaign, as Lee Fang reported earlier this year.

In other words, states where Republicans crafted Voter ID laws are now states where the National Republican Party has hired a firm with a track record of submitting fraudulent voter registrations to bolster Republican Party registrations in those very same states.

Look at the depth of what they're doing!

The forms were said to all have similar signatures, changed addresses and party affiliations, and other defects which appear to have all been done by the same hand.

The case emerging in Florida tonight mirrors a similar incident reported earlier this year when more than a thousand fraudulent voter registration forms were discovered to have been turned in to the Sacramento County, CA Registrar of Voters by a group hired by that state's Republican Party.

By the way, the California group was also affiliated with Sproul. I dare these states who passed laws to keep honest organizations from registering voters regardless of their party affiliation to prosecute and impose the maximum fines on the dishonest Romney contractors who are trying to steal the election in swing states. Let them back their rhetoric with actual penalties. Start with Nathan Sproul and his dishonest associates, who clearly think winning can only be attained by cheating.

Because this was national, Mitt Romney should be accountable as well. Someone should be asking him why he is spending money on firms with known records of fraud and cheating to register ONLY Republicans in swing states. That question should be asked on camera and he should be forced to actually answer it instead of dodging it like he usually does.