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Tuesday, March 6, 2001

The city was still reeling from charges of Democratic vote fraud during last fall's general election. A grand jury is investigating 3,800 suspect voter-registration cards, many bearing the names of prominent citizens – alive and dead.

GOP elections director Kevin Coan, who was arrested last week across the river in Alton, Ill., turned up at least 161 active voters whose addresses are listed as vacant lots or boarded buildings.

The St. Louis Post-Dispatch said the grand jury was investigating reports that 30 people hired to do voter registration canvassing instead went to a fast-food restaurant and copied names and information from an older voter list. Among the individuals under investigation is Nona Montgomery, the niece of former Mayor Freeman Bosley Jr.'s campaign manager.

"The St. Louis vote-fraud scandal is a national embarrassment that must be cleared up," Sen. Christopher S. Bond, R-Mo., said in a report submitted to federal authorities.

The NAACP planned Monday to file suit to keep elections officials from using its "inactive voter list" to keep anyone from voting. About 54,000 voters are on the list, but elections officials said anyone on the list showing proof he lives in the city will be allowed to vote.

In Tuesday's contest, Mayor Clarence Harmon faces Bosley, Aldermanic President Francis Slay and former school board member William Haas on the Democratic side. Michael Chance and Francis Wildhaber face off on the Republican ballot.

A Post-Dispatch-KMOV-TV poll conducted by Zogby International released Feb. 19 showed Slay in the lead with 45.9 percent of the vote, followed by Bosley with 26.9 percent, with 18.9 percent undecided. Harmon garnered support from only 6.4 percent of those polled.

On the Republican side, Chance led Wildhaber 17.8 percent to 8 percent, with the remainder of Republicans polled saying they were unsure or planned to vote for others, possibly indicating they planned to cross over and vote in the Democratic primary.

The candidates spent Sunday outlining their visions for the city. Harmon and Bosley appeared at church services, while Slay held a union hall rally.

More than 30 federal, state and local observers were lined up to monitor primary voting. U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft, a former U.S. senator from Missouri, planned to send two observers.

"The people of St. Louis and the entire state are entitled to honest elections in the city," Missouri Secretary of State Matt Blunt said in a statement. "The new discovery of fraudulent registration cards for March 6 and irregularities detected in November have cast doubt on the integrity of the process in St. Louis. …

"It is critical that we restore order and credibility so that the true will of the people in St. Louis city can be heard."

Coan, 39, is accused of offering on the Internet to pay a 14-year-old girl for sex. The "girl" was actually a male Alton police officer who had set up a chat-room sting.

A friend of Coan's said the elections official was set up. The friend said Coan received a call from an unidentified woman telling him his wife had collapsed at an Alton store. When he arrived at the store he was arrested by an officer who walked up to him and identified himself as "Amber."

State's Attorney William Haine said that the first call Coan made after his arrest was to his wife at her St. Louis County office.

"The effort to clean up the St. Louis vote-fraud scandal is bigger than any one individual," said Bond spokesman Ernie Blazar, who noted that the former executive director of the board, Janice Trigg, was ousted in 1997 after she was accused of taking home a board-owned computer for her personal use.

Copyright 2001 by United Press International. All rights reserved.

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