ST. CHARLES, Mo. (AP) — A Missouri judge on Friday denied a Republican committeeman’s effort to force the state’s third-largest county to allow watchers or challengers to observe early voting. The judge didn’t consider the merits of the committeeman’s lawsuit but dismissed the challenge because it wasn’t written meeting state legal standards. Missouri law says each political party can designate a challenger for every polling place on Election Day. The lawsuit argued that the committeeman should be allowed to observe now because ballots are really tabulated as soon as voters feed them into a scanner. This is the first presidential election with no-excuse absentee voting in Missouri, and turnout has been heavy at many places.
