Phoenixville Man With GOP Tie Charged with Tossing Va. Voter Forms

A Phoenixville man who’s employed by a company that works for the Republican Party of Virginia was arrested in the state on Thursday for allegedly throwing out completed voter registration forms, several outlets are reporting.

According to Talking Points Memo, a news site known for liberal political commentary, Colin Small, 23, was arrested by the Rockingham County Sheriff’s Office and charged with four counts of destruction of voter registration applications, eight counts of failing to disclose voter registration applications, and one count of obstruction of justice.

Small reportedly works for Pinpoint, a firm hired by the Virginia GOP to register voters in the state. On October 15, the manager of a home accessory store in Harrisonburg, Virginia spotted a man who was later identified as Small throwing eight voter registration forms into a Dumpster behind shopping center where he works.

October 15 was the voter registration deadline for the state.

Though Virginia is one of the last true swing states—political forecasting blog Fivethirtyeight.com projects Republican Mitt Romney to carry the state by just a 0.2 percentage point margin—it’s unclear if Small’s motives were political.

Virginia doesn’t register voters by political party, so it would be a challenge for someone to identify registration forms of likely voters of the opposing party and discard them.