The Nevada Action Coalition is a conservative group that recently alleged that Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid was planning to benefit at the polls from illegal voter fraud.
It is also a beneficiary of Reid’s opponent’s largesse: a now-defunct non-profit run by Reid’s Tea Party-backed opponent Sharron Angle gave nearly $100,000 to that very group in 2008, Delen Goldberg of the Las Vegas Sun reported Wednesday.
Angle’s We the People Nevada PAC, which dissolved in May 2009, gave $92,000 to the Nevada Action Committee — which has since joined other conservative groups alleging that Democrats in the state are involved with voter fraud and trying to steal the election.
“Want to make sure Harry and his buddies don’t steal this election?” an Oct. 9 web post by the Nevada Actions Committee read, according to the newspaper. “Then come to the training next Tuesday. We need lots of watchers, cause you know the dark side has secret plans for this election.”
Angle’s campaign alleged this week that Reid was committing voter fraud by offering free food to voters.
The Coalition has made some outlandish claims, according to the Las Vegas Sun:
The Coalition claims that the government wants to merge the United States with “the corruption, socialism, poverty and population of Mexico and Canada” and designate a section of Kansas City as sovereign Mexican territory, according to its website. It also asserts that Muslim leaders designated a yellow badge for Jews to wear, which was later copied by Hitler in Nazi Germany.
The Nevada Action Coalition has a basic website featuring an eagle and a sparkling American flag, but no phone number. They say they are “open by invitation to all people regardless of political affiliation, race, color, religion or national origin… one only condition, you must be a legal resident of America.” Their mission is “providing a forum of American men and women concerned with preserving our way of life, our culture and our sovereignty.”
Reid’s campaign has alleged that the Angle campaign is engaging in a campaign of voter intimidation and suppression.
“As Sharron Angle has demonstrated consistently throughout this campaign, she and her operatives are willing to do or say anything and deploy any strategy - no matter how despicable or dishonest - in pursuit of her extreme and dangerous agenda for Nevada,” Reid campaign spokesman Kelly Steele said Tuesday.
“Sharron Angle and her goons are running a textbook Republican campaign of voter intimidation and suppression, making completely unsubstantiated and wildly false allegations of fraud, all as a smokescreen to cover up their own sleazy and even illegal tactics to disenfranchise Nevadans whose voices they’d like to have silenced,” Steele said.
[Ed. note: this article was edited after publication]
Ryan J. Reilly
Ryan J. Reilly is a D.C.-based reporter for TPM. Prior to joining TPM, he worked for a news website covering the Justice Department and was a researcher for Bloomberg News. His email address is ryan(at)talkingpointsmemo.com.
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