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Tea Party voter suppression group probed by Dem. lawmaker

Now, the watchdog has got somebody watching it.

Now, the watchdog has got somebody watching it.

Rep. Elijah Cummings has launched a probe into True the Vote, a Tea Party group that is under fire for attempting to prevent thousands of registered voters from casting ballots ahead of Election Day, Cummings told Rev. Al Sharpton on PoliticsNation Monday.

"Voting is a fundamental right...It is not to be limited to a few as a privilege," said Cummings, who is the ranking Democrat on the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee.

"This is clearly a case of voter suppression," Cummings added, noting the Texas-based group is zeroing in on students, African-Americans and Hispanics—groups that tend to vote Democratic.

In a letter to Catherine Engelbrecht, president of True the Vote, Cummings wrote that True the Vote's "volunteers, and its affiliated groups have a horrendous record of filing inaccurate voter registration challenges, causing legitimate voters—through no fault of their own—to receive letters from local election officials notifying them that their registrations have been challenged and requiring them to take steps to remedy false accusations against them."

Sharpton called the organization, which has been accused in the past of hovering over voters, getting into election workers' faces and blocking lines of voters, "offensive" and "maybe illegal."