The Associated Press

ST. LOUIS — Wallace Wicks thought it was odd Wednesday when a volunteer asked him to sign his name on a petition — not once but three times. Wicks went ahead and did it, thinking the petition was part of an effort to limit the use of eminent domain in St. Louis.

In fact, Wicks put his third signature on a petition for a ballot measure to ban most affirmative action programs in Missouri. He said afterward that the volunteer never mentioned affirmative action when asking for his signature.

If he had, Wicks said he never would have signed.

“Why would I do that?” asked Wicks, who is black. “Affirmative action is for minorities to get a chance to get different jobs.”

Wicks’ experience, witnessed by The Associated Press, seemingly bolsters claims made by politicians and political activists in St. Louis and Kansas City. They say supporters of the measure to ban affirmative action have been canvassing black neighborhoods and using misleading practices to gather signatures.

“It’s been a pattern of deceptive practices to do anything to qualify this (initiative) for the ballot,” said Brandon Davis, a member of a group called the WE CAN Coalition that opposes the measure.

The initiative would ban programs that give hiring preference to people based on race, sex, or ethnicity. A group called the Missouri Civil Rights Initiative is trying to gather roughly 140,000 signatures to get the measure put on the statewide ballot in November.

Volunteers for the initiative are told never to deceive voters when gathering signatures, said Tim Asher, Missouri Civil Rights Initiative’s executive director.

“We tell them quite plainly that misrepresentation is illegal,” Asher said. He said he could not confirm Wednesday whether the man who collected Wicks’ signature worked for the campaign because the man refused to give his full name to the AP.

“If in fact this person does work for us, and this did occur, then we want to take action against these individuals,” Asher said.

Asher’s group doesn’t have direct control over everyone gathering signatures for the ballot initiative, Asher said, because it hired Georgia-based National Ballot Access to do much of the work.

National Ballot Access is simultaneously gathering signatures for Asher’s group and for a separate group seeking to limit the use of eminent domain, Asher said. National Ballot Access did not return a call seeking comment Wednesday.

Missouri is just one of five states where supporters of activist Ward Connerly have tried to pass ballot initiatives this year banning affirmative action. Efforts continue in Arizona, Colorado and Nebraska, but the signature gathering fell short in Oklahoma.

The man who collected Wicks’ signature would provide only his first name, which he gave as Joaquin. He was busy gathering signatures during the lunch hour Wednesday at a St. Louis strip mall where the clientele was largely black.