Heavy voting by absentees setting record

~ From staff and wire reports

Tens of thousands of absentee ballots, a looming Missouri record, are being cast before next Tuesday, adding to the unpredictability of the general election.

Even though Missouri doesn't have a law allowing early voting, absentees are effectively doing just that by asserting under penalty of perjury one of Missouri's specific reasons for casting one of the special ballots.

"I've never seen anything like this," said Jim O'Toole, Democratic director of elections in the city of St. Louis, where about 7,500 absentee ballots have been requested.

An Associated Press check of local election officials consistently found absentee voting running ahead of past elections. "It is heavy, heavy, heavy," Pat Conway, the Buchanan County clerk, said from St. Joseph.

In Cape Girardeau County, the county clerk's office had processed nearly 2,400 absentee ballots by midday Friday, with more still coming in. The number already is 400 higher than the total absentee ballots cast in the 2000 election.

In Scott County, about 1,000 absentee ballots had been cast by Friday, about 250 more than the total in 2000. In Bollinger County, 441 absentee ballots had been cast as of 2 p.m. Friday with another 100 expected. The county clerk's office was unable to provide information about how many absentee ballots were cast in 2000.

In Perry County, the 530 absentee ballots already received by Friday compared to 170 in 2000. Perry County received 605 applications for absentee ballots this year.

Four years ago, St. Louis County -- Missouri's most populous county and a prize for politicians -- had just over 30,000 absentee votes cast. More than 36,000 absentee ballots have been requested so far, and officials say the final number could easily top 40,000. Suburban St. Charles County, with one of the state's fastest-growing populations, could double its absentee vote from 2000.

For Thomas Minihan, voting absentee was a matter of convenience and practicality. When he was a railroad conductor, "it was the way I made my voice heard in elections, because I was always out of town with the trains."

Now that he's retired, the Jefferson City man still votes absentee because he works at the polls on Election Day.

That covers two of the legal reasons for being able to vote absentee: being away from a voting jurisdiction on Election Day or serving as an election worker. People who are sick, disabled or shut-in may also vote absentee, and a voter may cast an absentee ballot citing religious beliefs.

Political parties are encouraging absentee voting, partly because it can lock down support while campaigns remain underway.

Missouri doesn't have no-excuse early voting, a matter that was litigated earlier this year. Democrats said state legislation required early voting to be allowed. Republican Secretary of State Matt Blunt replied he was only required to plan an eventual launch of early voting, and a circuit judge agreed with him.

"Absentee voting allows as many as possible to participate in the election, and we feel it helps Republicans because our voters are interested and engaged enough to care about voting absentee," said Paul Sloca, a spokesman for the Missouri Republican Party.

Democrats have criticized one GOP practice this year: obtaining from local election officials the names and addresses of people asking for absentee ballots, then using the lists to make contact with the voters.

"These people are voting at home, and that action violates the sanctity of the polling place, which is their home," said Jack Cardetti, a spokesman for Missouri Democrats. "State law says campaigning has to be kept 25 feet from the polling place. How can it be right to take it right into their homes because they are voting absentee?"

Republicans reply that their actions are legal -- and that other campaigns, including those of some Democrats, have done the same thing.

But the Democratic and Republican candidates for secretary of state have agreed that the practice of contacting absentee voters should be enforced by law. They note that Missouri law bars seeing absentee voter lists in St. Louis or Kansas City until the Friday before the election. That law, they argue, should be applied statewide.

Absentee ballots clearly warn voters that they must fit within the qualifications for voting without going to the polls, "under penalty of perjury." But the state attorney general's office says there have been few actual prosecutions in recent history.

In 1984, a state appeals court upheld a Raytown man's conviction for delivering a fraudulent ballot application to an aged resident of a nursing home, then filling in the votes after it was signed. Also about two decades ago, several people were convicted of improper use of absentee ballots in a St. Louis suburb where absentee voters were solicited, then their ballots were illegally filled out.