Cross-posted at Obama Strikeforce.
I'll keep this as brief as possible, as we're still gathering information from our field reporters.
We had a tip come in our on Strikeforce Hotline that there are police circling Berkley Middle School in the Airport Township.
There are two issues in play:
1. Police are circling the polling place, which according to our source, is making people in line uneasy.
2. Poll workers are harassing voters over identification.
Obviously, voter intimdation in a predominately African American pocket of the metro area (77% African American, 2000 Census) is a very big deal. At this time, we haven’t been able to determine whether or not the intimidated voters are being turned away or being given a provisional ballot.
Upon receiving the tip, we alerted the Obama lawyer at the polling place closest to our current location, who then called the "secret squirrel" hotline to provide the information we were given. Shortly thereafter (and I mean like 4 seconds after he hung up), we received a phone call from the boiler room for more information. We were then told that the campaign was dispatching a platoon of lawyers to deal with the problem immediately.
We will update the post at the Obama Strikeforce web site with more information as it becomes available.
Edit: Digg Link -- please help us get the word out!
Edit 2: Isn't technology grand? Thanks for all the recs/tips -- we've contacted local media (St. Louis Post-Dispatch, NPR Affiliate, local TV, et cetera), so hopefully this will get some play. In the mean time, please keep Digging the link. It'll be hard to ignore what's happening when it's plastered all over the internet.
Edit 3: The intimidation issue is starting to get some play locally. However, since we originally broke the story, we've received reports of multiple breakdowns of scanners and electronic voting machines. In one polling location, we were informed that due to the breakdowns, the ballots will be counted separately later today, possibly delaying returns.
As we've been saying in our Strikeforce graphics-wrapped RV (woo-woo!), so goes St. Louis, so goes Missouri. I can assure you that the campaign, the massive army of lawyers, the City Democrats and the Young Democrats are all doing whatever we can to ensure victory.