GOP accused of using poll challengers to target blacks

ST. LOUIS -- Some civil rights leaders joined with the Democrat-aligned group America Coming Together Thursday to accuse the Republican Party of hiring hundreds of poll challengers as part of an effort to suppress the black vote in St. Louis.

Missouri Republican Party spokesman Paul Sloca called the accusation "disgusting" and "blatantly false."

St. Louis NAACP president Harold Crumpton and black ministers spoke at a news conference outside the St. Louis Board of Election Commissioners office. Crumpton said Republicans have obtained lists of newly registered voters and hired 300 poll challengers.

"This is a deliberate effort to throw obstacles in the way of African-Americans exercising their right to vote," Crumpton said. "Are they challenging voters in Franklin County? Or Washington County? No. It is no coincidence that they are doing this in areas where African-Americans vote."

With the presidential race a toss-up, both parties will employ poll challengers -- partisans placed a precincts to question a voter's eligibility if they suspect the voter is ineligible.

Both sides have lawyers on standby. Nonpartisan election watchers will also be in St. Louis. Even the U.S. Attorney's office here has established a hotline to report allegations of election fraud and voter rights abuse.

St. Louis has a history of polling irregularity.

In November 2000, a city judge ordered polls kept open after 7 p.m. in response to Democratic lawsuits charging that hundreds of voters were turned away. An appeals court swiftly overruled the judge and closed the polls, but Republicans said many votes were illegally cast.

Sloca denied that the GOP, by placing poll challengers here, is trying to keep down the black vote, which traditionally swings heavily Democratic.

"The Republican Party is doing nothing but urging people to go to the polls and make sure that every vote's counted," Sloca said. "There are election trouble spots throughout the state of Missouri, and they are not in strictly minority communities. We will have poll watchers at several areas of concern where there have been histories of problems."

The NAACP will have its own poll challengers at 100 largely-black precincts in the St. Louis area, mostly in the city, Crumpton said. They'll be watching for any efforts to intimidate blacks, he said.

ACT officials cited New York Times and BBC reports alleging Republican tactics in Florida and Ohio to challenge voters in urban and mostly-black areas; Sloca cited reports of a Democratic document "urging their folks to create an appearance of intimidation even where none exists. And that's exactly what's going on here."

Earlier this month, ACT distributed get-out-the-vote fliers in St. Louis and Kansas City showing a 1960s snapshot of a firefighter spraying a black man under the headline, "This is what they used to do to keep us from voting."

Sloca said, "For too long, the Democratic Party has taken the African-American vote for granted. I think African-American voters are seeing through these kinds of misleading and, frankly, disgusting tactics."

political parties to place vote challengers at precincts