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Since last fall, "Operation Big Vote" has been active in the St. Louis area as part of a national campaign -- promoted by Democrats -- to register more African-American voters and get them to the polling booth. This effort delivered 3,800 voter registration cards to the St. Louis Elections Board on the February 7, 2001, the deadline for the March mayoral primary in that city.

Not surprisingly, many St. Louis residents are angry that someone had registered them and knew information such as their Social Security numbers. Some of the people registered by the bogus cards told Election Board workers that someone calling himself "Big Mike" came to their homes and said he was with the Election Board and wanted to register them.

This is not the first time Operation Big Vote has been at the center of a voter registration controversy. In 1994, the director of Operation Big Vote was the subject of a similar investigation into fraudulent voter registration cards found among the 14,000 that the group had collected to aid a statewide campaign to allow riverboat casinos. No one was indicted.