Report: Political dirty tricks abound

PHILADELPHIA, Oct. 6 (UPI) -- U.S. election watchers anticipate a wave of political dirty tricks in the final weeks of the 2008 campaign and have already noted some examples, officials said.

Dirty tricksters are expected to use telephone calls, leaflets and e-mails -- primarily in battleground states -- to influence voters and maybe even suppress the vote, ABC News reported Monday.

Students at Drexel University in Philadelphia have reported seeing flyers on campus warning that undercover police will be at polling places on Election Day, intent on arresting anyone who has an outstanding warrant or a traffic offense. The flyers are designed to appear as though the warning came from an "Obama supporter," ABC said.

Allen Raymond -- a former Republican Party operative who served a prison term for his part in a 2002 conspiracy to jam phones for a Democratic Party get-out-the-vote operation -- told ABC the flyer is "basically a deterrent to keep people away from voting" through fear and intimidation.

"The basic idea is that you intimidate people by saying that law enforcement is using the polling place to catch scofflaws … criminals … whoever," said Raymond, the author of the book, "How to Rig an Election: Confessions of a Republican Operative."