Four employees of a temporary staffing agency said they were ordered to tell people they were volunteers for the State Republican Party. Loyalty Dixon, Marquis Mayes, and two others said they had to sign agreements to not tell anyone they were actually working for the Allstaff Labor Group on the GOP’s behalf. But they spilled the beans to the Associated Press, saying they were upset they were not being paid for the final days of work.
They were hired to go door-to-door in the Milwaukee suburbs, finding John McCain supporters and giving them applications to vote early. Dixon said some residents asked them why they were volunteers and were not getting paid and she and the others said they had to lie.
State GOP spokeswoman Kirsten Kukowski confirmed a dispute over the hours they worked and the Allstaff Labor Group was working to resolve it. Kukowski said the party never told the workers to misrepresent themselves and they might have picked up a script from actual volunteers, which told them to identify themselves as such.
Allstaff was hired by the GOP to handle its absentee voting effort. The firm has not commented.