By Kevin Lavery, KWMU
St. Louis, MO – Volunteers for the group America Coming Together delivered about 2,000 voter cards to the St. Louis Board of Election Commissioners Wednesday.
The group charges that Secretary of State Matt Blunt -- who oversees state elections -- is asking that weekly absentee voter lists be sent to state Republicans. Gerry Hudson is with the Service Employees International Union:
"Blunt is playing around with absentee ballots," Hudson said. "He's playing around with provisional voters. We cannot allow this to happen.
A Blunt spokesman contends the request for lists is not illegal, and is a way to remind absentee voters their ballots must be notarized before they're counted.
Overall, St. Louis city election officials expect about 210,000 people will be registered for the Nov. 2 election, as compared with about 185,000 four years ago.
Republican Director of Elections Gary Stoff believes people are more politically aware now than in 2000.
"Four years ago the race was extremely close, in some respects controversial and I think people are generally more interested in the process and want to be part of the solution," Stoff said.
A series of errors plagued the city election board during the 2000 election, including a lack of access to inactive voter lists and poor communication.
Stoff says those issues have since been corrected.