It was told to me that the reason Wayne Williams, County Clerk of El Paso County CO (Republican) (his official bio here) was mentioned as the person the girl worked for was that Wayne Williams was involved in training the contracted staff and party volunteers on registration of voters! Furthermore, the County Clerk's office does field registration events as well, specifically at high schools and at the local university to identify just a few.
The significance of this is that the elected official duty bound to protect and serve fair and equitable voter registration in the county, is involved in the activities with Strategic Allied Consulting, a known voter registration partisan operative. Furthermore, watch Wayne Williams as he starts his holier than though position in this first news video on Monday September 24th when the story broke from Denver's NBC Affiliate Channel 9 News, Williams quote:
The statement made in this video is both unfortunate and inaccurate," said Clerk & Recorder Wayne Williams.
"My office does not and will not engage in partisan voter registration. It is the duty of the Clerk's office to ensure that elections are conducted in a fair and honest manner, this includes allowing any one to register to vote regardless of their political party affiliation."
A follow up news report from the NBC Affiliate in Colorado Springs
KOAA Channel 5 said this on camera as updated on September 25th:
According to Williams, the girl gathering voter registrations does not work for the County office. It turns out she's actually a paid employee for the Colorado Republican Committee.
El Paso County Republican Chairman Eli Bremer says of the girl's confusion, "It was her first day on the job and she panicked. She knew that she was turning in all the registrations to the County Clerk & Recorder's office and she knew that was the appropriate thing to do, and that's how she answered."
So why the confusion? Williams says, "In a sense one could say that they're all gathering voter registrations that eventually come into our office, which I why she probably made the mistake in the video."
WRONG!!!! For one thing the girl was not working for the Republican Party, either the State Party or the El Paso County Party but a contractor at Allied Strategic Consulting as reported here on Friday Morning from
Denver's Fox Affiliate, KDVR Channel 31, they knew this but were hiding the Sproul group!
The Colorado Republican Party has terminated its contract with a firm hired to run voter registration and get-out-the-vote operations here after allegations of fraud, FOX31 Denver has confirmed....And FOX31 Denver has confirmed that the young woman seen registering voters outside a Colorado Springs grocery store in a YouTube video, in which she admits to trying to only register voters who support Mitt Romney, was indeed a contract employee of Sproul’s company.
So let me review; first news reports have Wayne Williams denying the girl worked for his office and got mixed up as a "volunteer" of whom she worked for. Remember she was responding to the question, "who is paying her to do this"? Her response was tortured where she coughed up "for the County Clerk's Office", the County Clerk", where confirmation she confirms it again, "yes the County Clerk's Office". Watch it closely there was no confusion.
video
Then the second reports state she was actually an employee, as Eli Bremer (first nephew of L. Paul Bremer of the US. Special Envoy to Iraq under President Bush and son of former Congressional candidate, Duncan Bremer), the El Paso County Chairman says it was her first day on the job and she was all flustered and mixed up. But both are hiding the true nature of her employment and who trained her and why she mentioned the County Clerk's office.
Now we learn that indeed she was an employee of a notorious partisan political operative company that is the subject of a national press investigation regarding activities in Florida where 1/4 registrations were irregular. What is foreboding is KDVR's final paragraph:
[Justin] Miller [CO GOP Spokesman] told FOX31 Denver that no evidence of fraud has been detected in Colorado.
“We are not aware of any voter registration irregularities from our efforts to register voters,” Miller said. “No issues have been reported by the county clerk and the Secretary of State regularly checks voter rolls for incidences of fraud.” [my emphasis although both the Secretary of State and EPC Clerks are Republican]
Of course, the state has little way of knowing if some registration forms were filled out and then discarded.
To check that you’re voter information is actually on file and accurate
, visit www.GoVoteColorado.com.
So now I have been told personally that Wayne Williams personally was involved in the training of Strategic Allied Consultants voter registration contractors and other GOP volunteers. Is it coincidental or ironic that one of Wayne Williams biographical notes is this:
Politically, Wayne Williams is a past Chairman of the El Paso County Republican Party, where he oversaw the caucus and assembly election process for the County’s largest political party. For more than a decade he has played an active role in crafting bylaws to ensure fair elections.
Last note, the unidentified Strategic Allied Consultant contractor is displaying a promise ring from the Church of Latter Day Saints. It also should be noted that Wayne Williams mentions this on his bio as well:
He is an active member of the Chapel Hills Ward of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints where he currently serves in the Bishopric.
In my book there is far too much smoke and connective tissues here. It will be interesting what next weeks officially reveals.
My theory: Wayne approaches the girls family from his church and says he knows of a job for her to make some fast money. So the girl is connected to Wayne Williams. He then is on display training the volunteers and employees where he discusses the nuances of having people identify their political affiliation beforehand. Now the gig is up and they are trying to protect the entire operation from the contracted relationship, where 1/2 the state party's budget is spent on Strategic Allied and the fact that the firm is doing the dirty business while also trying to protect the politician.
Now an investigation needs to be launched. Yes indeed we can determine which registrations were torn up or irregularly submitted. In Colorado each registration has a tracking number tied to the register who is registered to the Secretary of State. Each registration is given a receipt to the voter as proof of registration. Yes they can go back and see if activities were unlawful. And if indeed Williams was the trainer and also is the Clerk he is accountable.
[UPDATE] I didn't see the CO Springs Gazette's story today on the detailing more of the story but it also fills in more blanks and offers many more questions when you piece together all the news reports:
First the first plausible reason why she offered up the Clerk's office as who was paying her. She signed a non disclosure form which I think in CO is illegal in political solicitations. Two, there were ongoing problems with Strategic Allied and the EPC GOP which Eli Bremer and Wayne Williams would have known about where they both offered that Ms. Bautista was a volunteer, then staffer on her first day and now it was her 3rd day.
Third, did it take the issues in CO Springs and FL to fire such a bad firm they already knew? And this still does not answer the involvement of the Clerk on partisan electioneering.
On Friday, local officials confirmed that the young woman was working for a company called Strategic Allied Consulting, which specializes in signing up new voters. Strategic was fired Thursday by both the national and state Republican parties after it was linked to possible voter fraud in Florida.
Bill Roy, chief operating officer of the El Paso County GOP, said Strategic was responsible for more than possible voter fraud.
“This is an organization that is characterized by mismanagement, ineptitude, stupidity, and they got what they deserved,” Roy said, and called Strategic a “shadow organization” for trying to keep its identity from the public.
The young woman in the video is 20-year-old Victoria Bautista, according to Roy. She was working two jobs, paying her way through school.
The Gazette attempted to reach her but was unsuccessful. Roy said she did not want to comment to the media.
Strategic required its employees to sign non-disclosure forms, pledging they wouldn’t tell anyone who they worked for. That’s why Bautista said on the video that she worked for the county clerk’s office — she was caught off-guard, and had to lie for Strategic, Roy said.
Roy also said he banned one of Strategic’s supervisors from the county party headquarters after the company threatened to fire a top-notch employee.
The company, he said, had requested business cards with the county GOP logo. Company officials changed their minds after getting the cards, and told their employees to destroy them.
One employee did not destroy all the cards, Roy said, and a Strategic supervisor wanted him fired. Roy said the supervisor refused to discuss the matter with him.
“We do not permit that type of conduct, so it’s like, ‘OK, you’re out of here,’” Roy said.