ELECTION 2004 Republican Geoff Davis, Democrat Nick Clooney and Independent Michael Slider. (AP Photo/Ed Reinke)

• Clashes get tense in debate • New-voter signups soaring • Democrats winning race to sign up new voters • Increase in ripped-off signs gauges raw election emotion • Southgate headed to special vote on school tax • Gas tax stirs Senate campaign • 34th District race: Hot, cool as Brinkman, Miller contrast • Cocaine for voter registration fraud alleged • Park 'giveaway' roils levy • Early voting opens in Florida, and a few problems are reported • Blackwell proposes allowing ballots to be cast at wrong place • Bush, Kerry step up rhetoric on Iraq war • And down the stretch they come... • Borgman cartoon • Kentucky candidates guide • Election 2004 section

Chad Staton, 22, of Defiance, had fraudulently filled out more than 100 voter registration forms, Defiance County Sheriff David Westrick said.

"Staton was to be paid for each registration form that he could get citizens to fill out," the sheriff said. "However, Staton himself filled out the registrations and returned them to the woman who hired him from Toledo."

Staton was charged with false registration and was released on his recognizance to await arraignment Friday in Defiance Municipal Court.

No other charges had been filed in the case Monday, authorities said.

Officers said that they interviewed a Toledo woman who claimed that she had paid Staton with cocaine for the phony voter registrations.

Officers said they obtained a search warrant and took voter registrations and drug paraphernalia from the woman's home.

The woman claimed she had been recruited by a Cleveland man to obtain voter registrations, Westrick said.

The Defiance County Board of Elections asked the sheriff to investigate after the board received the bogus registration forms from the Cuyahoga County Board of Elections, Westrick said.

According to Westrick, the NAACP's National Voter Fund had submitted the false registrations to the elections board in Cleveland.

George Forbes, Cleveland chapter president of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, said Monday that the voter fund operates independently from his chapter.