Report: Voters duped into joining GOP

LOS ANGELES, Oct. 18 (UPI) -- A company hired by the Republican Party denies it used deceptive practices to register 70,000 new Republican voters in the United States this year.

Young Political Majors, has a history of fraud complaints nationwide, most recently in California where some new Republicans allege they were tricked into changing their registration, the Los Angeles Times reported Saturday.

The Times said it randomly interviewed 46 of the hundreds of California voters the firm recently registered and 37 of them -- 80 percent -- said they thought they were signing petitions for tougher state law enforcement penalties, not changing political parties, the Times reported.

Voters in Massachusetts, Florida and Arizona have made similar accusations against Young Political Majors, which is paid $7 to $12 for each GOP registration it secures, the Times reported.

Company and Republican officials said signature gatherers have each person Young Political Majors registers sign an affidavit acknowledging they voluntarily joined the GOP.

"It does the state party no good to register people in a party they don't want to be in," said Hector Barajas, a spokesman for the California Republican Party.