Voter group that tore up Democratic registrations in '04 resurfaces

[Awsi Dooger]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/08/22/AR2006082200807.html

NASHVILLE, Tenn. -- A voter registration group with Republican ties has been banished from Wal-Mart stores in Tennessee for failing to meet the retailer's standards of nonpartisanship and may soon be shut out of stores in California and Nevada, the retailer's spokesman said Tuesday.

Liberty Consultants wanted to register Wal-Mart shoppers in seven traditionally Republican suburban counties around Nashville. But the request was denied after the company's owner, Gary Thompson, acknowledged to Wal-Mart that he had been hired by Tempe, Ariz.-based Sproul & Associates.

Headed by Nathan Sproul, a former Christian Coalition activist and executive director of the Arizona GOP, Sproul & Associates was paid $7.9 million by the Republican National Committee for consulting and voter registration drives in the 2004 election cycle, according to data compiled by the Center for Responsive Politics.

The group set up tables Friday at a Wal-Mart in Gallatin, about 25 miles northeast of Nashville, despite being denied permission earlier in the week. They left only when company officials threatened to call police, Wal-Mart spokesman Dennis Alpert said.

Liberty Consultants tried to have the Tennessee store ban overturned by calling officials at Wal-Mart's Bentonville, Ark., headquarters.

"They questioned our decision on their request, stating that our policy allows for nonpartisan voter registration," Alpert said. "But our research indicated they did not fit our definition of nonpartisanship."

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Sproul's canvassers focused on signing up Republican voters in key battleground states in 2004. Former canvassers came forward in West Virginia, Pennsylvania, Nevada and Oregon to say they were told to register only Republicans and to walk away from people who said they intended to vote for Democrat John Kerry. Some said completed Democratic registration forms were thrown out or ripped up.