Blackwell counters that he also kicked third-party candidate Ralph Nader off the presidential ballot, a move that he said helps Kerry. As for the rest, Blackwell said he is just following the law.
"What you have here is a clash of ideals," he said. "There are those that believe a person should be able to register any time, on any form, and vote in any place. Then you have another point of view -- my point of view -- that says ours is a society of rule and law and rules have to be complied with to turn a ballot into a vote."
In Missouri, Blunt went to court this summer and quashed an effort by Francis G. Slay (D), the mayor of St. Louis, to open polls early in that heavily minority, Democratic stronghold.
Slay, a co-chair of Kerry's national finance campaign, argued that early voting was needed to prevent widespread disenfranchisement of city voters caused by long poll lines and other problems that occurred in 2000; Blunt argued that the mayor was trying to bend state law for partisan gain.
More recently, Blunt moved forward with a plan to accept ballots via e-mail from some overseas service members, a group that traditionally favors Republicans, despite concerns about the integrity of the system. And late last month, Blunt asked local election officials to send the state GOP weekly lists of those requesting absentee ballots, which were then used to contact voters, prompting Democrats to charge that he was ignoring a state law that prohibits contacting such voters for the purpose of advocating candidates.
Blunt spokesman Spence Jackson said, "You'd be hard pressed to find a more bipartisan secretary of state."
Sara Howard, Missouri spokeswoman for the Democratic group America Coming Together, said Blunt's gubernatorial candidacy raises a fundamental question: "Does he want to oversee elections in a fair, nonpartisan manner, or is he out to help himself and the president?"
Some election officials have tried to avoid such questions by refusing to campaign for their party's presidential nominee, but that has not inoculated them from criticism.
Florida Secretary of State Glenda E. Hood (R), for instance, eschewed the formal campaign role played by Harris but has come under criticism for a series of decisions affecting the election. Her latest move -- she issued a legal opinion that new registrations should be discarded if applicants signed an oath affirming their citizenship but forgot to check a citizenship box -- could bar thousands from voting.
Some local election officials, including those in Miami-Dade County, are ignoring the directive, and last Thursday, Democrats in Florida sued her in federal court, one of several cases pending on Hood's election-related rulings.
Hood's spokesman, Alia Faraj, said that Democratic interest groups signing up new voters are to blame for submitting incomplete applications.
In Iowa, Secretary of State Chet Culver (D) is under attack for sending out a voter guide that included an absentee-ballot request. Although the mailing went to every Iowa household, absentee voting in that state has traditionally favored Democrats, and Republican officials cried foul.
Culver said he is "offended" by Republican suggestions that distributing a voter guide to every Iowa household is aimed at anything other than increasing participation. "There's a big difference between a secretary of state putting out a voter guide and someone not accepting new voter registrations because of the weight of the paper," he said.
In New Mexico, state GOP Executive Director Greg Graves calls that state's chief election official, Democrat Rebecca Vigil-Giron, the "most partisan secretary of state I've ever seen." Vigil-Giron successfully fought off a GOP-led lawsuit that sought to require thousands of newly registered voters to show identification at the polls.
Graves said that twice as many new Democrats have registered in that state as Republicans, and he points to a $500 contribution that Vigil-Giron made to Kerry in concluding: "She feels the looser the rules are, the better it is for Democrats."
Vigil-Giron said she is just following the law. "In my heart and in my mind, I am a Democrat," she said. But when it comes to being secretary of state, she added, "I apply the law equally and fairly."
The D.C. region also has had its share of partisan sparring over election matters. In Virginia, Attorney General Jerry Kilgore (R), who plans to run for governor, pushed to place Nader on the ballot, a fight he won after the state's highest court ruled that Democratic election officials improperly disqualified Nader petitions.
In Maryland, the Republican-led State Board of Elections is trying to oust Administrator Linda H. Lamone, a Democrat. Her party has called the bid an openly partisan maneuver led by Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich (R) to give Republicans control over the state election apparatus.
In the swing state of Minnesota, Secretary of State Mary Kiffmeyer (R) is fed up with the partisan sparring. Liberal groups have charged her with attempting to stifle voter turnout by failing to keep up with the demand for new voter registration forms, rushing into service a flawed statewide registration system and issuing warnings about terrorism at the polls.
Kiffmeyer said her record speaks for itself: Under her watch, the state has had among the highest turnouts in the nation. "But I have the sense that if I walked on water, the Democrats would say I can't swim."
Researcher Lucy Shackelford contributed to this report.
