GOP WANTS POLLS WATCHED; BOOTHEEL AREA WOULD BE TARGET

The Missouri Republican Party wants the federal Justice Department to monitor November elections in the Missouri Bootheel as well as the St. Louis and Kansas City areas.

Republican Party leaders said they are concerned about potential election fraud.

GOP spokesman Daryl Duwe said the party wants the Justice Department to monitor elections in Mississippi, New Madrid, Pemiscot, Dunklin, Stoddard and Scott counties.

Duwe said Wednesday the GOP plans to ask Republican members of Missouri's congressional delegation to make the request to Attorney General Janet Reno.

Woody Cozad, chairman of the Missouri Republican Party, called for federal oversight of elections after a former campaign worker for state Rep. Gene Copeland, D-New Madrid, pleaded guilty Monday to a vote-buying charge.

Lester Gillespie, 42, of Oran Route 1 pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor charge of rewarding voters in the November 1996 election with coupons good for beer and other $1 items at a Charleston convenience store. Copeland was not accused of any wrongdoing.

"We must also look ahead to the election this November," Cozad said in a faxed statement to reporters. "Will the Democrats be trying to pull similar shenanigans?"

Cozad said, "We cannot let the cornerstone of our system of government -- free and fair elections -- be destroyed by a bunch of overzealous Democrats willing to do anything to stay in power."

State GOP leaders said federal monitoring is needed because Missouri Secretary of State Bekki Cook's office won't step in to ensure fair elections.

Duwe said, "What you really need are a lot of prying eyes to keep a lookout to make sure you don't have people essentially being bribed to vote."

But Jim Grebing, communications director for Cook, said the secretary of state's office has no legal authority to investigate election irregularities.

Cook unsuccessfully pushed for passage of a bill in the 1997 legislative session that would have provided some investigative authority for her office.

Grebing said Cook has asked the Missouri Highway Patrol to investigate election problems in several cases. But ultimately the prosecution of any election irregularities rests with the U.S. attorney's office or local prosecutors, he said.

Grebing said Cook had offered her assistance to federal authorities when the vote-buying allegations first surfaced in Mississippi County.

The elections division of the secretary of state's office doesn't have the manpower to monitor elections, Grebing said. The division has a five-person staff.

Grebing accused Republicans of playing politics in calling for federal monitoring of the November elections.

He said the GOP wants to monitor elections in areas of the state where there are large concentrations of Democratic voters.

"The GOP goes out and throws a lot of accusatory smoke and fills the air with that and hopes some of that sticks," said Grebing. "Do you really want the Feds to come in and take over our elections process in Missouri?"

Grebing said the federal government has better things to do than monitor Missouri elections. "This is ludicrous," he said.

Mississippi County Clerk Hubert DeLay Jr. said federal monitoring of the November elections isn't warranted.

He said such monitoring outside the polls wouldn't detect vote fraud in cases like the 1996 incident in which voters were given coupons for beer or merchandise away from a polling site.

"We have no control what happens on the street," DeLay said.

He said he would be the first to call for federal intervention if he had reason to believe that fraud would occur.

DeLay, a Democrat, views the call for federal monitoring as nothing more than partisan politics. "In my opinion, it would be a waste of taxpayers' money," he said.