As we know, Republicans can't win a national election unless they steal it. So as we count down to the presidential election, Republican election officials around the country are making all sorts of "mistakes" and accidentally "forgetting" all kinds of details:

WASHINGTON -- Democratic activists in Riverside County, Calif., claim that a Republican voter outreach project may be illegally registering Democrats as Republicans to boost the GOP's registration advantage, according to CaliforniaWatch.org, an investigative journalism outfit.

The website reports, "In a complaint filed last week with the county registrar of voters, the Democrats presented affidavits from 133 Democratic voters who said they had been re-registered as Republicans without their consent after they encountered petition circulators outside welfare offices and stores.

"A local Democratic Party spokesman told CaliforniaWatch.org that the registration project's efforts may aid GOP fundraising efforts (by making local races seem more winnable) and impede Democrats' ability to turn out their voters. A spokeswoman for the Golden State Voter Participation Project denied the allegations, saying, "Our canvassers are trained about the laws, the rules and how to conduct themselves."

Here are some other election-related mishaps in the news:In Palm Beach County, Fla., election officials are red-faced about yet another printing error on absentee ballots. As HuffPost reported last week, the county must manually fill out copies of 27,000 absentee ballots that can't be digitally scanned because of a design error. On Monday, elections supervisor Susan Bucher told the Palm Beach Post that she had to send new absentee ballots to another 500 voters because the flawed ballots they received didn't contain one of 11 proposed amendments to the state's constitution. The ballots also allow people to vote twice on three of those amendments because one of the ballot pages appears twice. [Ed. note: Bucher is a Democrat. This information was not added until today because I couldn't get in to edit the post while the server was down.]

In Lakeland, Fla., an editorial in The Ledger warns that strict rules for counting absentee ballots may prevent some ballots from being counted. It points to a provision of Florida law that states, "After an absentee ballot is received by the supervisor, the ballot is deemed to have been cast, and changes or additions may not be made to the voter's certificate." The concern is that voters who don't sign their absentee ballots before turning them in will have their ballots invalidated. In a swing state like Florida, every vote may make a difference: A mere 537 Florida votes separated George W. Bush from Al Gore 12 years ago.

In Oneida County, N.Y., officials say the cost of fixing a typo on 130,000 ballots will be about $75,000, according to the Utica Observer-Dispatch. The newspaper reports that the county had to print brand-new ballots because the "c" was missing from President Barack Obama's first name. "I called the printer [Albany-based Fort Orange Press]," County Executive Anthony Picente told the paper. "She can cry poor me [in] this election and that election. They did it wrong and this is an embarrassment."

Yesterday's news brought us the news that a new registration scandal had broken out in Virginia. Today's news seems to indicate that the firm employing the man caught tossing registration forms has ties back to Nathan Sproul's outfit and the Republican party.

I know, what a surprise. First, let's have a look at Talking Points Memo's report:

A Pennsylvania man employed by a company working for the Republican Party of Virginia was arrested by investigators from the Rockingham County Sheriff’s office on Thursday and charged with destroying voter registration forms.

Colin Small, a 31-year-old resident of Phoenixville, Pa., worked for Pinpoint, a company hired to register voters on behalf of the Republican Party of Virginia. Prosecutors charged him with four counts of destruction of voter registration applications, eight counts of failing to disclose voter registration applications and one count of obstruction of justice.

Rockingham County Sheriff Bryan Hutcheson’s office said there was no indication that the activity was widespread in their jurisdiction and said the conduct “appears to be limited in nature.” His office said there is a possibility that additional charges may be filed.

Hmmm. Pinpoint. Wait, that's the same firm that's under investigation in Florida, and that investigation is now a criminal investigation. Via the LA Times:

"I did nothing wrong," said the former assistant auto parts manager, who lost his post at a Jaguar dealership about a year ago. He said he got the voter registration job after responding to a Craigslist ad placed by a company called PinPoint Staffing seeking people to do "voter surveys." The ad specified that all applicants had to be registered Republicans and active voters.

Although he reported to a PinPoint Staffing office in West Palm Beach, he said, "I thought I was dealing with the Republican Party."

Oh, you mean CraigsList ads like this one?

Is it just me, or is it more blatant than ever this year?

Update:

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Via Salon, the beginning of the trail:

So what does Sproul have to do with Karl Rove? According to a report by Brad Friedman that appeared in Salon and on his own site, BradBlog, American Crossroads has paid at least $750,000 for Sproul’s services. On October 9, Representative Gonzalez’s letter to Rove inquired about American Crossroads’ relationship to Sproul and his companies in the past and whether Crossroads has ongoing ties with Sproul during the current election cycle. Among other questions, Gonzalez asked Rove what services Sproul provided for American Crossroads, why he was hired, why Rove would associate with someone who had a reputation for participating in voter fraud, whether Crossroads has severed its relationship with Sproul, and whether it has worked with him under other names. Gonzalez urged Rove to respond by October 23.

Brad Friedman picks it up from there with even more juicy details:

It now appears that Strategic Allied Consulting has the same corporate mailing address in Virginia as Rove's American Crossroads PAC. Imagine that...

Late last week, the state of Florida released the original election fraud complaint [PDF] filed against Strategic last month. That complaint eventually led to the full-blown criminal investigation by the Florida Dept. of Law Enforcement said to now be underway.

As sharp-eyed BRAD BLOG commenter "Citizen92" noticed in those newly released documents, the "Key takeaway from this is that Strategic Allied Consulting has a business address of 45 North Hill Drive, Suite 100, Warrenton, VA."

"Who else has a business address at 45 North Hill Drive?," Citizen92 asked rhetorically, "American Crossroads, Karl Rove and Ed Gillespie's 527 group."

Indeed our good Citizen92 is correct, according to the IRS 527 filing for American Crossroads [PDF], the mailing address for Rove's outfit is also 45 North Hill Drive, Suite 100, in Warrenton, VA.

Gosh, who would have imagined such a thing? That Karl Rove and Nathan Sproul might share the same business address? Surely Rove wouldn't have his hands in something that shady, would he?

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[H/t Dave]

In Reno, Nevada, a man doing voter registration asked a man to register as independent, "because I don't get paid credit for Democrats." And for some odd reason, the secretary of state doesn't seem all that interested in looking into the matter to see if any laws were broken:

As the final deadline for voter registration draws near, political parties are scrambling to get their people signed up. Along the way some of their tactics are raising eyebrows.

A KOLO 8 viewer caught one example on his cell phone Friday.

Noticing a man registering voters outside the main post office on Vassar he says he couldn't believing what he was hearing as he passed. So he returned to engage the man in conversation and took video of it all on his cell phone..

It all seemed normal at first.

"It's your last hour to register to vote," the man said.

"Are you registering both parties?" our viewer asked.

The man said yes, but then the conversation took the same strange turn our viewer thought he'd heard in passing.

"Could you do me a favor?" the man asked. "Mark non-partisan on there. I'll get credit for it. I don't get credit for Democrats.

"I am a Democrat," he continued. "So I still do Democrats if I have to, but I'm working for the Republican Party. I have to get two an hour and I don't get credit for Democrats."

There are legal boundaries which can be crossed when you pay someone to register voters.

According to Secretary of State Ross Miller it's a felony to compensate someone for registering if you compensate them based on the total number of voters they are registering.

In fact, in 2008 Miller did prosecute the now defunct ACORN organization.

"In ACORN we obtained a criminal conviction because they were paying bonuses based on the total number they were able to register. The Supreme Court upheld that," says Miller.

But the law does allow for an employer to set performance standards. In this case, it's not clear what the payment arrangement was.

"It is alarming that he was making some suggestion that he wouldn't be credited for a registration if it came under a particular party affiliation, but there's no explanation what that meant."

Bottom line: The man's request was inappropriate, perhaps even disturbing, but the video didn't show a clear violation of the law.

Ooh! Ooh! Let me guess! We're not going to investigate it because he's white, right?

Once someone has filled out a voter registration form, that form must be turned in within 10 days. There have been allegations that may not always happen.

"We have had complaints this cycle that forms have been destroyed by political parties if people don't register with that political party and so we urge people to log onto our website and make sure that they are, in fact, registered."

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Well, look who crawled out from under his rock to defend himself on Fox News. How predictable. Voter registration trickster Nathan Sproul is just adamant that his reputation will be restored, because well, it was just a few staffers being naughty. Way to run a business with a 3 million dollar contract, Nate.

Here's what he says:

“We did a very good job,” owner Nathan Sproul, a veteran Republican political operative, insisted. “We have an exceptional record.”

The firm, Strategic Allied Consulting, is at the center of claims that fraudulent and tampered voter registration cards were turned in to election officials in Florida.

"We registered almost 100,000 voters, hired nearly 5,000 workers, and when you hire that many people and do that large of a project, inevitably there's going to be a few people who try and cheat the system," Sproul said. "When that happens, we fire those folks and turn them over for prosecution. That's what happened here," he said.

The company also has faced suspicion for its work registering voters in other states. But Sproul, a former chairman of the Arizona Republican party, blamed fewer than 10 workers for any problems. He said they not only violated company policy but also the law.

"When law enforcement looks into this situation, what they will find is that our company had a systematic effort of quality control," he said. "The handful of people who we caught cheating the system were fired and turned over to investigators for prosecution."

Oh really? Because that's not exactly how things played out. This New York Times report lays it out pretty well. In situations where registration fraud was reported, it wasn't reported by Sproul's firm or his shell companies. It was reported by the voter. The same is true of his operation in Portland in 2004, and the Florida registrations in question. None of them were reported by Sproul's outfit, all were flagged by voters or registrars.

In Nevada, a complaint filed last month with the secretary of state’s office alleged that a woman, Cathy Sue Yancey, was told to tear up a form in which she registered as a Democrat and fill out another one without marking her party affiliation.

The complaint was filed by another woman who said she witnessed the event outside an unemployment office in Henderson, Nev., on Sept. 13. That woman, Gina Greisen, said she and a group of friends had been approached by a man who told them that they needed to update their voter registration. “He talked about voter fraud and mentioned Acorn and illegals voting,” Ms. Greisen said.

You've already read about Mark Jacoby and his connections to Sproul. Jacoby was actually convicted of voter fraud, unlike the voters Republicans routinely accuse.

If Sproul is just a fine, upstanding businessman doing business for the RNC, then why the request for him to do business through shell companies instead of the one he was known for? I think we all know the answer to that one.

One final note on all of this, especially with regard to the RNC's claim that they have zero tolerance for voter registration fraud and acted quickly to sever ties. They knew Sproul was shady and used shady schemes to boost Republican voter registrations in key states. That's why they asked him to operate under a different business name. When everything finally came to light, terminating Sproul was merely a symbolic act. The damage has been done. Will people who thought they registered to vote via Sproul's operatives discover they're not registered? Will they discover it in time to register before the deadline? Doubtful.

The worst part of what the RNC and Sproul did wasn't registering fake people. It was registering only Republicans. Those people who might have registered as Democrats are now lost in a system that might keep them from voting on November 6th. That's true voter suppression, and Sproul should be held fully accountable for it instead of being allowed to toss a few employees under the bus and call himself righteous.

For more firsthand Florida information, visit Beach Peanuts.