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Politics : Impeach George W. Bush -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: TigerPaw who wrote (1706)	2/7/2001 4:47:14 PM
From: Mephisto	Respond to of 93284

I believe McCain's campaign reform bill was scheduled to be discussed b4 Congress in March. I haven't heard any thing else about it.

To: TigerPaw who wrote (1706)	2/7/2001 4:52:06 PM
From: Mephisto	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 93284

Another Look at Fla. Ballots -- for the Archives By Sue Anne Pressley Washington Post Staff Writer Tuesday, February 6, 2001 ; Page A06 MIAMI, Feb. 5 -- In many ways, the scene that unfolded in the Miami-Dade County elections office today had the all-too-familiar look of the event that transfixed and bored millions of Americans late last year when the Florida presidential vote recount was in full swing: squinty-eyed workers staring at disputed ballots. But this time, there was no mention of candidates' names. There was no consulting among workers. None were allowed to touch a ballot. Indeed, they were not referred to as counters at all, but as "coders." Today was opening day of the "Florida Ballots Project," an undertaking sponsored by a group of eight major media organizations, including The Washington Post, the New York Times and CNN, and carried out by the National Opinion Research Center, a nonprofit corporation affiliated with the University of Chicago. During the next couple of months, workers overseen by NORC will code the disputed "undervote" and "overvote" ballots in Florida's 67 counties in the presidential and Senate races -- about 180,000 ballots in all. An undervote is a ballot on which the counting machine did not detect a mark. An overvote is one in which the machine detected two or more marks. In Miami-Dade, the coders will examine about 10,500 undervotes and about 19,000 overvotes. "Everybody is very much on the same page: We want to create a definitive archive of what was on these ballots," said Ford Fessenden of the New York Times, one of the coordinators of the project. " . . . We haven't asked NORC to tell us how many votes there are, just tell us what are the conditions of these ballots -- which will allow people, the public, anybody who wants to dig in there and decide for themselves, what votes are there." Fessenden said the project also will point the way toward changes that need to be made in voting systems to avoid another situation like the one in Florida, where the disputed recount was finally halted by the Supreme Court, giving victory to George W. Bush. Tracy Buie, NORC's regional manager, stressed that the coders, who also began work in four other Florida counties today, are "not trying to interpret or second-guess the voters." At each table in Miami-Dade today, three coders faced a county elections employee who held up ballots one by one. The elections employee could hold the ballot above a small lighted box, Buie said, but was the only person at each table allowed to touch the ballot. A NORC team leader sat to the side of each table. The same process also began today in Pasco, Pinellas, Polk and Hillsborough counties. Coders will examine ballots and determine to their own satisfaction whether the ballot was blank; whether the paper chad was detached at one, two or three corners; whether the chad was dimpled; whether it was dimpled but allowed sunlight to show through; or whether the voter had punched the ballot but missed the chad entirely. The three coders will not discuss their conclusions about each ballot. Comparing their decisions will help determine whether the process was overly subjective. County Elections Supervisor David Leahy stood watch, as did two Republican Party observers. No Democratic observers were in attendance today, another departure from the infamous presidential recount, in which both parties were vocally represented. Luigi Crespo, South Florida field director for the state Republican Party, said he was present "to observe the methodology" but questioned why the ballots were being examined. "People want to move on," he said. "It's time for the media to get on with it, too." © 2001 The Washington Post washingtonpost.com