Local Republican Party reacts to possible voter registration fraud

WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. - Sid Dinerstein reacts to reports a national company,  Strategic Allied Consultants, was paid by the Florida Republican Party to do a voter registration drive.

"I have never heard of the company, never met any of their people. Did not know they were in the county. My understanding is that this came to the state from the national party and came with a million dollar check, so that's what happened, " said Dinerstein.

Supervisor of Elections Susan Bucher said her office found 106 voter registration forms from Strategic Allied Consultants that looked questionable.

"As our employee started to put the data into our records, they noticed there were a lot of signatures that appeared to be common and there was a lot of missing information and it didn't appear to be real consistent, " said Bucher.
 
Those forms are now in the hands of the State Attorney's Office.

Dinerstein said, "These companies who do voter registration they hire I don't know where the company is headquartered, but the people they hire are here. They are locals. So it's a way of getting paid to do something and it sure sounds easy to cheat. You sit there with a stack of 100 voter registration forms and you just fill in names." 

Political analyst Brian Crowley weighed in on the possible voter registration fraud.

"One hundred and six would seem small in a lot of places, but when you have had a presidential election in Florida that was decided by 527 votes, 106 votes can seem like a lot of votes, " said Crowley.

This afternoon, Mike Garrison with the Republican Party of Florida released this statement:

"When we learned today about the instances of potential voter registration fraud that occurred in Palm Beach County, we immediately informed the Republican National Committee that we were terminating the contract with the voter registration vendor we hired at their request. There is no place for voter registration fraud in Florida."

The State Attorney's Office says it could take weeks or months to complete the investigation.