A video uploaded to YouTube on Friday depicting a young woman registering voters in El Paso County, Colorado claiming she works for the clerk's office, but is only registering voters who support Mitt Romney has gone viral over the weekend.
The person recording the video exits a Safeway grocery store and a young woman who is registering voters outside the store asks her, "Are you voting for Romney or Obama?"
The woman recording responds, "Well, wait, I thought you were registering voters a minute ago."
To which the young woman replies, "I am." The person recording then asks, "Well, who are you registering? All voters?"
"Well, I'm actually trying to register people for a particular party. Because we're out here in support of Romney, actually," the young woman registering voters says.
"And who is paying you for this?" The video recorder asks.
"We're working for the County Clerk's Office," the young woman replies with some hesitation and confusion.
The El Paso County Clerk and Recorder Wayne Williams disavowed the young woman's statements that she was registering voters on behalf of Williams' office. "The statement made in this video is both unfortunate and inaccurate," Williams said in a statement. "My office does not and will not engage in partisan voter registration. It is the duty of the Clerk’s office to ensure that elections are conducted in a fair and honest manner, this includes allowing any one to register to vote regardless of their political party affiliation."
According to 9News, the young woman registering voters outside of the Safeway storewas a volunteer for the Romney campaign who has since been spoken to by the campaign about her actions.
Republicans in El Paso County claim that the video was recorded more than a month ago by a Democratic "campaign operative" and has been released now to damage the Romney campaign. But, Christy Lelait, Chairman for the El Paso County Democratsdenies that charge to KOAA. "It's an interesting charge. I don't know of any campaign operatives here in El Paso County and I know for certain that the woman who shot this video is not a campaign operative, she's a volunteer with several different organizations including the El Paso Democratic Party and she's also a precinct chair."
Later in the video the woman recording says to the volunteer, "Okay, you cannot come out here and register one party, lady." The young woman now becoming clearly embarrassed puts her hands up in front of the camera to block her face. "You're working for the County Clerk's Office?"
"I believe so, yes," the young woman says.
"And you're only registering Republicans?" The video recorder says with outrage. To which the young woman replies, "No."
"You said you're only registering Romney people," says the video recorder.
And the young woman replies, "Well, we're trying to, to be honest."
It's unclear if the young woman in the video was only registering Romney voters, but if that were the case, it would be illegal if she were doing so on behalf of the County Clerk's office. It would also be illegal to deny a person registration based on their survey answers, which isn't entirely clear if that would have occurred in the video above either.
The El Paso County Clerk's Office has requested that the video be removed from YouTube because it contains inaccurate information, but the person who uploaded the video has refused to do so.