A Republican Party effort to register voters in advance of next month’s presidential election became the focal point of new controversy Friday when the authorities in Virginia charged a voter registration supervisor who had allegedly thrown eight completed voter registration forms into a recycling bin.

The sheriff’s office in Harrisonburg, Va., said the supervisor, Colin Small, had been charged with 13 counts of destruction of voter registration applications, disclosure of voter registration information, and obstruction of justice. Mr. Small was employed by PinPoint, a company working for the Virginia Republican Party to run local registration drives, and reported to a party headquarters in Harrisonburg.

Mr. Small, of Phoenixville, Pa., had until recently worked for Strategic Allied Consulting, the Arizona company that was fired by the national Republican Party last month after allegations of voter registration improprieties in Colorado, Florida and Nevada. PinPoint, which also has offices in Arizona, had previously been a subcontractor for Strategic Allied Consulting, which is run by a Republican operative, Nathan Sproul.

Mr. Sproul had been under contract with the Republican Party to run registration drives in five states, including Virginia. The Florida Department of Law Enforcement began investigating his operation after state elections officials noticed problems with registration forms including false addresses, registrations filed in the names of dead people and registrations on which party affiliations had been changed.