NC State Board of Elections investigates risk of voter fraud

CHARLOTTE, N.C. — A group hired to register Republican voters in North Carolina has been accused of voter registration fraud in Florida.

The North Carolina State Board of Elections is investigating suspicious cases.

Strategic Allied Consulting states on its website that it doesn't tolerate voter registration fraud, but that is what the group has been accused of.

Election officials in Florida say the company tried registering about 100 people, all with similar signatures and wrong birth dates.

Allied was also registering voters in North Carolina.

"We have asked counties to review any new applications coming in from all voter registration drives to ensure there is no impropriety," said Gary Bartlett from the N.C. State Board of Elections.

Michael Dickerson of the Mecklenburg County Board of Elections says there have only been a handful of suspicious registrations linked to Strategic Allied Consulting.

"Noticed a couple of these that just didn't sound right. We send a voter card out to somebody, and they send it back to us or call us and say, 'I didn't fill that out,'" said Dickerson.

Each of those cases was sent to Raleigh, and no fraud has been proven yet.

The Florida cases were enough for Republicans in five states, including North Carolina, to immediately cut ties with Strategic Allied Consulting,

"There were a couple of folks who were helping out. Young kids who seemed to be doing a good job from what I had seen, but as soon as that happened, they were gone," said Gideon Moore, Mecklenburg County Republican Party chair.

An attorney for Strategic Allied Consulting, which is based in Arizona, was quoted as saying all of the suspicious Florida registrations were tied to one person who was immediately fired.

WSOC