Here is what Sproul had to say today about allegations of voter fraud surfaced by local reporter George Knapp of KLAS-TV in Las Vegas:
In an interview with the Star Tribune, Nathan Sproul said his company put extensive safeguards in place to guard against inappropriate behavior and blamed the Democratic Party and affiliated groups for "baseless allegations" to discredit him."What you are beginning to see is that the Democrats realize that the Republican efforts to register voters have been extremely successful in the last couple of months and there is a lot of anger about that," he said. "In some ways it's a compliment."
The writers are at pdoyle@startribune.com and mbrunswick.com.
Meanwhile, he's suing the employee he never paid for reporting him to the FBI:
Sproul filed suit Friday in Maricopa County Superior Court against the former employee, claiming defamation and infliction of emotional distress and seeking unspecified damages.
A Valley-based political consulting company filed a defamation lawsuit Friday against a Nevada man who accused employees of throwing away Democrats' voter registration cards.A lawyer for Nathan Sproul, company owner and former chairman of the Arizona Republican Party, claimed that Eric Russell, who worked for the firm in Clark County, Nev., may have ripped up the voter forms himself.
According to the seven-page lawsuit filed in Maricopa County Superior Court, Russell was fired for falsifying his time cards and being verbally abusive toward a supervisor at Sproul & Associates Inc.
The lawsuit claims that after Russell was fired, he returned to the office holding what appeared to be voter registration forms and told workers he would claim that he saw a supervisor tear up the forms unless he was paid what he wanted.
Russell was unavailable for comment.
Sproul said his company's policy, as well as federal law, is to register both Democrats and Republicans. He noted that the company registered 1,065 Democrats in Nevada. He said he didn't know how many Republicans the company registered but added that he was hired to target Republicans.
Sproul, a Republican, accused national Democrats of using the allegations to their political advantage and ignoring facts.
"At the most, there have been less than 20 Democrats affected by the allegations," said Tim Casey, Sproul's attorney.
Sproul said neither he nor his company have been contacted by FBI or Nevada law enforcement officials.
An FBI spokesman has previously said agents are gathering information about the charge.
Sproul's company was also accused by a man who claimed to be an employee of throwing away voter registration cards in Oregon.
Sproul disputes that claim and said the company had no records that the man ever worked there.