Posted on 10/26/2004 4:18:23 PM PDT by Dan from Michigan
Parties train hundreds of challengers to monitor polls on Nov. 2
10/26/2004, 5:53 p.m. ET
By DAVID EGGERT
The Associated Press
LANSING, Mich. (AP) — Eric Doster, a top GOP lawyer, stood in a windowless hotel conference room and opened with a statement intended not only for about 60 Republican faithful but also the handful of Democrats who'd come to his training session.
"This program," he said, "is not in any way, shape or form an effort to intimidate voters."
Doster spoke for an hour about a provision of Michigan's election law that could prove crucial if either political party is to lay the foundation for legal challenges in a tight election: poll challenging.
An unprecedented number of Republican- and Democratic-selected election challengers will monitor precincts statewide next Tuesday, checking everything from voter eligibility to the 100-foot campaign-free zone outside polling places.
Republicans say they want to prevent mischief. Democrats say they hope to stop intimidation.
Though not new, this year's challenging is expected to have a decidedly post-2000, post-Florida feel.
"The Democratic play book is to steal the election," GOP Executive Director Greg McNeilly said.
Michigan Democratic Party Chairman Mark Brewer responded: "The Republicans engage in voter intimidation tactics."
Both parties are relying on poll challengers to safeguard the election process. In the end, election officials will handle problems or complaints lodged by challengers at the polls.
The Democratic Party aims to post more than 700 lawyers as "guards" in polling places that have a significant number of black, Hispanic, Arab-American or student voters, Brewer said.
Republicans will have a roving legal team handle problems reported by hundreds of party volunteers placed in precincts.
By appointing challengers, both sides can monitor election officials to make sure they're following the rules.
Accusations frequently lobbed back and forth between the parties when it comes to elections include fraud, intimidation, suppression, threats, cheating and harassment.
Challengers can position themselves behind the election inspectors' table, examine voting equipment, observe each person wanting to vote, inspect registration rolls and voter applications, look at ballots as they are counted and remain in the precinct until election officials finish their work.
Perhaps most importantly, challengers, who must have party-issued credentials, can challenge a voter's right to cast a ballot if there is "good reason to believe" that he or she isn't qualified to vote.
These challenged ballots — coupled with a possible increase in provisional ballots used when voters say they are properly registered but their names aren't on the registration rolls — could be central to recounts or other postelection legal issues.
"If this is a tight election," Doster said, "we're going to want to look at those people."
Democrats say that in the past they've gotten reports of people stopping minority voters in places like Detroit, Flint and Pontiac, asking if they have outstanding debt or owe child support. The party alleged a dozen instances of voter harassment in the 2002 general election. In 1999, Hamtramck residents were accused of questioning Arab-American and Asian-American voters' eligibility based on their ethnicity.
Republicans warn that suspicious registration forms recently turned in by the Public Interest Research Group in Michigan, or PIRGIM, and Project Vote indicate the potential for fraud on Election Day. They also cite a Democratic National Committee manual that urges operatives in battleground states to launch a "pre-emptive strike" even if no signs of intimidation have emerged.
Harvey Warrick, a 74-year-old sheep farmer from Lenawee County's Rome Township, will serve as a Republican poll challenger, as he has in past elections.
Warrick, who's helped oversee recounts, said his biggest concern is securing the ballot box.
"The irregularities are just scary," he said, citing an instance where it took an hour-and-a-half for ballots to travel from a precinct to a central location for counting.
Even so, both sides acknowledge that the vast majority of election challenging involves eliminating improper campaigning at the polls. All campaigning — handing out literature, collecting signatures, urging people to vote for or against a candidate — must be at least 100 feet from any doorway used by voters to enter a building with a polling place.
Another problem: people getting into line after precincts close at 8 p.m.
The precinct-level inspectors will deal with initial issues. The next step is the city or county clerk. The final stop: the state, which will have its own team of lawyers available to discuss election law and mediate disputes.
They expect more activity this year.
"We've got the parties both bragging that they have hundreds of lawyers out there," Secretary of State Terri Lynn Land said. "The more lawyers out there, I'm sure the more calls we're going to get."
(Yes, I've called, many times. No callbacks. I've given up trying. And I have plenty of battleground states around me. It's not like I live in southern California.)
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