Beverley Lumpkin: Halls of Justice

W A S H I N G T O N, April 20, 2001 -- 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.

Bond's report points out that the only named plaintiff who was not a candidate for office was one Robert D. Odom. The suit stated, "Robert D. Odom is an individual registered voter residing in the City of St. Louis and intends to vote for electors for the President of the United States and for other federal, state and local candidates. Odom has not been able to vote and fears he will not be able to vote because of the long lines at the polling places/machine breakdowns in St. Louis, Missouri, that have lasted for several hours."

Those representations were attested to by local counsel for Gore/Lieberman, who even told the judge that Odom "is here and prepared to testify."

The judge went along, and at about 6:30 p.m. on Election Day ordered the polls to stay open till 10 p.m. Republicans raced to the Missouri Court of Appeals, which quashed the lower court's order at about 7:45 p.m. The appellate court noted, "It is probably impossible to know how many voters were improperly permitted to cast a ballot after the polls should legally have been closed."

But wait, there's more!

Unfortunately for the Democrats, as Bond points out, Odom "was either dead or never existed." When the May 1999 death certificate for Robert D. Odom surfaced, there was an attempt by the Dems to say oh no, not that Robert Odom; we really meant Robert M. Odom, known as Mark Odom, who works in the office of Democrat William Clay. Only problem: this Mr. Odom had actually voted, prior to the filing of the lawsuit, and thus could not have honestly complained of being unable to vote.

As William Bedsworth, a native Missourian now a judge in California wrote, "When I die, I want to move to St. Louis. It appears that St. Louis provides better post-mortem benefits to its citizens than other cities, so I'm thinking that's the place for me." Acknowledging Missouri's colorful voting history, Bedsworth said he wasn't too surprised to hear that the dead have the franchise, but he "did not previously understand that corpses were allowed access to the state's courts."

Boss Pendergast would be proud.

Mom and Apple Pie

If you've found interesting the president's recent efforts to contradict the impression that he's not dedicated to protecting the environment, here's a prediction for another upcoming U-turn: restoring $60 million in funding slashed from the Boys and Girls Clubs.

The Justice budget request for FY02 is essentially flat, with virtually no increase in funding from the current year.

But Bush/Ashcroft want to increase spending in certain areas by $2 billion; those funds have to come from somewhere, and that means whittling away at other Justice programs, no matter how popular. Thus the COPS program has been cut overall by about $155 million, but more importantly there will be no new hiring of any additional officers except for those assigned to schools. A program to help states with large alien prison populations has been halted. And funds for the "truth in sentencing" law that rewarded states for abolishing parole have been cut off.

But boys and girls? Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., called it "one of the unkindest cuts in the president's budget," adding, "This is a budget that leaves thousands of children and their clubs behind."

Leahy pointed out that for the past four years, since its first authorization by President Clinton in 1997, Congress has each year approved increased funding for the program, due to the clubs' "proven role in discouraging youth gangs, drug abuse and youth violence." Leahy also argues that the clubs "are a major component of the emerging consensus in Congress toward a balanced anti-drug approach that adds prevention and treatment to Congress's usual emphasis only on law enforcement."

Beverley Lumpkin has covered the Justice Department for 15 years for ABCNEWS. Halls of Justice appears every Friday.