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St. Charles in heavily GOP. It is also the only county in MO that has a separate Election Authority which is not bipartisan.
In St. Louis and KC, and in St. Louis County, and Jackson County (which contains KC), there are bipartisan boards. One member of each party. All the other counties have a County Clerk, St. Charles County, which has an Election Director (Rich Chrismer).
Chrismer told the Democratic County Chairman that they had to turn in all 170 names at once (this was back in November of '05), or he (Chrismer, the Repug) did not have to take any of Dems!
The Chairman of the Democrats in St. Charles wrote a letter to our SoS, but received no reply.
This past August, after the primary, the Election Directors (either bi-partisan in the three big areas, or the County Clerks) send out a list to be filled out). When the Democratic County chair approached Chrismer again, and had less than 170 names (not an uncommon occurrence is some of the redder counties).
Chrismer told the chairman, in effect, to go piss up a rope. And who ya' gonna call, GhostBusters? The state Democratic establishment has been silent, except for the belated and half-assed attempt by a few out-of-state legal employees to get poll challengers and verifiers.
In three week they managed seven workers. That out of a voting population of 240,000 which is a bit under 40% Dem. But that is still SEVEN out of 100,000 Democrats who could have been called.
I'm on the opposite side of the state (Jackson County) and I have more people working in St. Charles County than St. Charles does!
I'm fucking gob-smacked!
FWIW, I imagine it was no accident that the singular nature of St. Charles County (with one partisan Election Official) was the place where the father of Talent's campaign manager decided to launch his career.
Time will tell what happens there and whether Chrismer can get away with this. But, then again, in 2004 I would have bet Ohio's Ken Blackwell would be in jail instead of running for governor.
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