MIAMI, Oct 22 (AFP) - The Republican party claimed Friday Democrats illegally coordinated a voter mobilization blitz for John Kerry in Florida with groups not regulated by electoral authorities.
The Republican National Party (RNC) posted a Democratic planning document on its website, claiming it demonstrated their rivals partly "outsourced" the mobilization effort in Florida to groups the candidates are not allowed to coordinate with.
The Democrats denied any wrongdoing, but confirmed the veracity of the document, which shows they planned a major voter mobilization effort in Florida mainly targeting blacks, non-Cuban Hispanics and swing voters in the central part of the key battleground state.
Analysts believe a comparatively small number of votes in Florida could again play a crucial role in determining the outcome of the presidential race, as was the case in 2000 when a 537-vote lead in the southeastern state secured Bush`s victory.
The RNC claimed the document demonstrated the Democrats illegally coordinated the mobilization effort with special interest organizations known as 527 groups.
The political campaigns are not allowed to coordinate with such groups, which are allowed to mobilize voters but are not regulated by electoral authorities and are not subject to the same financial contribution limits as candidates.
"The Florida Democrat Party isn`t spending federal dollars on election activity in Florida because they`ve outsourced their entire get-out-the-vote effort to shadowy Democrat soft money groups that are spending millions of dollars to elect John Kerry," said RNC Chairman Ed Gillespie.
"The Democrat Party must have saved millions of dollars this election cycle with similar illegal arrangements with soft money groups in other states," he said in a statement.
The Democrats` document proposed the creation of a "coordinated campaign" committee to include the Florida party leader, representatives of the AFL-CIO trade union, lawyers and teachers groups and others.
In order to succeed, Kerry`s Florida campaign needs "the greatest grassroot organization the state has ever seen," the document said, adding that 33,000 volunteers should be trained to implement "a major voter contact."
The plan, dated September 3, set the focus of the campaign on swing voters in central Florida and what it called the "underperforming Democratic base, particularly in sporadic voting African-American and non-Cuban Hispanic communities."
It called for the use of "condo commandos" and "campus SWAT teams" to approach elderly and young voters, as well as automated telephone calls from Democratic leaders and a massive television advertising campaign.
It also emphasized the need to convince people to take part in early voting, which started on Monday.
10/22/2004 18:04 GMT - AFP