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Tuesday, Dec 11, 2012 5:35 PM UTC

GOP consultant: Voter ID, long lines help “our side”

Scott Tranter admits that Republicans are helped by voter ID laws

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Topics: Voter ID, 2012 Elections, voter suppression, Republicans, Scott Tranter,

GOP consultant: Voter ID, long lines help (Credit: C-SPAN)

A Republican consultant admitted that Voter ID laws and long lines at the polls help Republicans win elections, saying that, “A lot of us are campaign officials — or campaign professionals — and we want to do everything we can to help our side. Sometimes we think that’s voter ID, sometimes we think that’s longer lines — whatever it may be.”

Huffington Post, which first pointed out the comments, reports that Tranter owns Vlytics, a “data consulting” company that was paid more than $3000 by Mitt Romney’s campaign.

Tranter was spekaing at a panel on voter difficulties during the 2012 elections, as part of a day-long conference held by Pew Center on the States. He did clarify that he thinks there are broader problems with the voting process, where “elections officials are under-prepared for job.”

“I’ll respectively disagree [with] why the lines are longer, and in some cases if they’re longer, but I think we can all agree that elections officials need to be better prepared and they need to spend more resources to make sure that people can vote, and they don’t have to wait in lines til 1 AM,” Tranter said. “I think everyone agrees with that.”

The full panel can be seen here.

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Jillian Rayfield is an Assistant News Editor for Salon, focusing on politics. Follow her on Twitter at @jillrayfield or email her at jrayfield@salon.com. More Jillian Rayfield.

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