Beverley Lumpkin: Halls of Justice

W A S H I N G T O N, April 20 -- The Justice Department's public integrity section is overseeing a criminal investigation of various allegations of voting fraud stemming from last November's election.

The allegations — some of them laboriously and exhaustively collected by Missouri Republican Sen. Kit Bond's office — include dead or non-existent voters as well as at least one prospective canine voter (the dog's registration by mail was signed with a rather childish scrawl.)

One of the problems cited by Bond is multiple registrations of the same voters, but of course that only becomes fraud if the voter casts a vote more than once. Otherwise, it's just sloppy voter rolls.

But there were more serious problems complained of in heavily Democratic St. Louis. In a floor speech introducing his "Safeguard the Vote Act" last month, Bond complained that St. Louis had become "a national laughingstock." He said there had been dead people, including several dead aldermen (as well as Ritzy the dog), registering by mail, and/or mailing in registrations from vacant lots.

Federal observers were sent by the attorney general to monitor a mayoral primary last month in the wake of these allegations, compounded by additional suspicious voter registration cards.

After a local grand jury conducted an investigation, the U.S. attorney became involved when Bond forwarded a 250-page report prepared by a group of St. Louis attorneys, and the FBI has now subpoenaed St. Louis election board records.

Republicans were originally upset when Democrats tried — and briefly succeeded — in keeping St. Louis's polls open later than their designated closing time last Nov. 7, on the grounds that some voters had been prevented from casting their votes.

Democrats asserted that an inactive voter list of more than 30,000 had created confusion and crowds that the election board was unable to deal with in a timely manner.

So the Dems filed a lawsuit to keep the polls open till 10 p.m., three hours later than the legal closing time.