CHARLESTON, Mo. (AP) - As many as 200 voters last fall were rewarded with yellow coupons good for a $1 purchase at the Gas-A-Mat - enough for a cold can of Old Style beer at the convenience store.
And enough to trigger a federal grand jury investigation into allegations of Democratic vote-buying.
"Thank you for your support!!!" read the mass-printed coupons that Republicans say were handed out to departing voters in mostly black, mostly poor areas to re-elect the Missouri Legislature's senior member, a good ol' boy who took office on the 1960 Democratic ticket headed by John F. Kennedy.
"In no way did we cheat," said Harry "Joker" Warren, owner of the Gas-A-Mat and a Democratic loyalist for more than half a century. "The Republicans just got mad because they got beat."
Several figures in what has been dubbed southeastern Missouri's Beer for Votes case have testified before the grand jury. No one has been charged.
"If people are to go out and pay people a dollar or two to steal their votes, I think that's the most degrading behavior," said David Barklage, director of the Missouri House Republican Campaign Committee.
The GOP's evidence: videotapes shot at Barklage's behest through a van's darkened windows outside Charleston's heavily black polling places. They show a Democratic effort to haul voters to the polls. A half-dozen voters at a time are seen climbing out of cars and vans to vote.
Barklage acknowledges the videotapes did not capture any actual vote-buying. And he concedes that the 200 or so votes involved would not have changed the outcome of the election, which Rep. Gene Copeland won by an 1,166-vote margin, or 55.3 percent.
But he said yesterday: "Votes were bought. The focus ought to be that someone attempted to buy the election."
The conservative southeastern Missouri region has long been dominated by Democrats. But in recent years they have faced spirited challenges from the GOP.
Lester Gillespie, a Democratic activist in Mississippi County's black community, acknowledges paying the owner of the Gas-A-Mat $200 to accept 200 coupons good for $1 worth of merchandise apiece.
He also acknowledges distributing the coupons to black voters whose names were checked off a list outside the polls to verify they cast ballots.
But Gillespie, who testified before the grand jury, insists the coupons were merely "a token of my appreciation" for participating in the political process - not a reward for voting a certain way.
Barklage said he spoke to several of the voters - conversations not picked up by his camera - and he said that one black woman acknowledged receiving a bottle of whiskey for voting, and that other blacks confirmed they received coupons after casting ballots.
But when an Associated Press reporter went back and made a door-to-door check on some of the people shown on the tape, they refused to talk.
"I ain't got nothing to say," one man said before slamming his door.
"I don't know nothing," said a woman at another home.
It's a federal offense punishable by up to two years in prison to "knowingly and willingly pay, offer to pay or accept payment for registering or for voting."
Barklage said the GOP is not asserting that the Democrats made any organized effort to spread the word about the coupons prior to Election Day.
Dispensing rewards for voting is not a new practice, he said.
"The coupon system has been known there for election after election," Barklage said. "I think it's already assumed and I don't think there's a necessity for publicity."
Assistant U.S. Attorney Larry Ferrell, a former Republican county prosecutor who is overseeing the grand jury, said he, too, grew up hearing accounts of old-time vote buying.
"I think we've all heard those stories," Ferrell said. "There has been some precedent."