Economic issues dominated the 2012 election season, with candidates from both parties vying to convince voters that they are more qualified to create jobs and help the economy recover. But unfortunately, some campaigns and third-party groups strayed from policy issues and relied on racism to win over voters. Below are the top 5 racist ads of the 2012:

1) In October, the Tea Party Victory Fund ran an ad suggesting that President Obama’s policies have “enslaved Americans” and showed an African American woman claiming that she received a free “Obamaphone” from the administration:

2) Former Rep. Pete Hoekstra (R-MI), who is challenging Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D-MI), ran a Super Bowl ad showing a woman in rural China speaking broken English and thanking Stabenow because “we take your jobs.” “Your economy get very weak, ours get very good,” the woman said:

3) In a stunning appeal to Islamaphobia, a group linked to former Swiftboater and birther conspiracy theorist Jerome Corsi launched a smear attack ad on a Muslim-American Congressional candidate. The spot warns that Dr. Syed Taj, the Democratic nominee in Michigan’s 11th Congressional district, wants to “advance Muslim power in America“:

4) Rep. Mary Bono Mack (R-CA) is attacking Democratic challenger Raul Ruiz for participating in Native American protests during the 1990s. “Raul Ruiz attacked Thanksgiving and our American values,” the ad claimed:

5) A Super PAC ad targeting Rep. Allen West (R-FL) over his positions on women’s rights, portrayed the Tea Party Congressman in a boxing ring throwing punches at white women. The spot pictured West in boxing gloves and with a golden tooth:

Conservative poll observers are gearing up for Election Day, when they will watch for possible instances of voter fraud and challenge voters they find suspicious. As ThinkProgress reported, many of these volunteers have been fed false or misleading information about voting rights by the Romney campaign and independent Tea Party groups like True the Vote. True the Vote encourages its poll watchers to “build relationships with election administrators” because “they control the access to the vote.”

But one True the Vote affiliate, the Ohio Voter Integrity Project, is taking their election interference one step further. Ohio VIP has recruited and dispatched poll workers who will not be merely observing, but directly involved in the voting process in a crucial swing state. Hamilton County elections director Tim Burke told the Columbus Dispatch that VIP poll workers will represent the Republican Party:

We know that the Voter Integrity Project has recruited and through the (Hamilton) County Republican Party has placed some poll workers. I have discussed this with my Republican counterpart.

I accept the fact that he understands that the VIP pollworkers are working for the Board of Elections on Election Day and are subject to the board’s instructions, not the VIP instruction. Obviously both sides are going to have observers as well as poll workers. I, and others will spend the day responding to trouble calls.

Ohio VIP provides a 3 hour training for their poll workers, as required by the Board of Elections. The group is advertising these sessions, according to the Dispatch, “as going beyond what the secretary of state tells them.” Ohio VIP is one of the more zealous branches of the already extreme True the Vote national organization; Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-MD) opened a criminal investigation into True the Vote due to the Ohio group’s attempts to purge thousands of students, trailer park residents, homeless people and African Americans from the voting rolls.

While in-person voter fraud is exceedingly rare, overzealous poll workers could jeopardize legitimate votes by forcing them to use provisional ballots, which cannot be counted until November 17. Ohio’s provisional ballot mess is already threatening to disenfranchise thousands of legitimate voters — the bulk of whom live in urban, minority-heavy areas like Hamilton County, which contains Cincinnati. In 2004, Ohio tossed out thousands of provisional ballots, concentrated in Hamilton and the state’s four other urban counties. Sen. John Kerry (D-MA) lost Ohio by a narrow margin in 2004, allowing George W. Bush to win a second term.

The Clackamas County Elections Office is under investigation by the Oregon Department of Justice for possible ballot tampering, reports the Oregonian. A temporary election worker allegedly filled in a straight Republican ticket where voters had left blank preferences. It is unclear how many ballots were affected, but, as Blue Oregon notes, this is not the first time Clackamas County has come under scrutiny for foul play.

The state elections office has twice had to monitor the county elections office. In 2011, an elections director had to step in when county clerk Sherry Hall accepted invalid signatures for a Tea Party-backed urban renewal petition.