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IN THE NEWS: Election 2004
Other resources for covering the news
Resources for Election 2004
Databases
The Federal
Election Commission's database consists of campaign
contribution details on all candidates seeking federal office and on all
federal political action committees. The data contains the amount of
each contribution given by the individuals and PACs. Some of the fields
include the candidate's name, party, address and district and the
committee's name. NICAR provides the data in two ways: As a complete data
set for each two-year cycle or, for subscribers, regularly updated.
Currently, this is done weekly. The updates consist of all of the data
since the beginning of the cycle year.
To order the data, call the Database Library at 573-884-7711 or download
an order form.
Training
Covering Campaign Finance: IRE members Derek Willis and Aron Pilhofer
of the Center for Public Integrity will speak and conduct hands-on computer
training at the Association of Capitol Reporters and Editors Annual Conference,
Nov. 12-14 in Columbia, S.C. Willis and Pilhofer are also co-authors of
Unstacking the Deck:
A Reporter's Guide To Campaign Finance.
In addition, IRE and NICAR offer a wide range of training to help you cover
all aspects of campaigns and elections. Check out our training
calendar.
Campaign Finance Information Center
The Campaign Finance Information Center is dedicated to helping journalists follow the campaign money trail — on the national, state and local levels. You'll find lots of resources on the CFIC Web site. The Center provides a forum on the latest developments in which journalists can learn from one other. Our training provides keys to the nuances of campaign finance and its influence on contracts, jobs and legislation. In our seminars we teach journalists news gathering and database skills they need to do in-depth, original reporting that goes far beyond the numbers.
IRE Publications
Unstacking the
Deck: A Reporter's Guide To Campaign Finance is an invaluable tool
for journalists pursuing stories about the impact of money on elections,
political parties and candidates at the federal, state and local levels.
Relevant chapters of The Investigative
Reporter's Handbook include Chapter
6 (Investigating Government: The Legislative Branch And Those Who Try To Influence It) and Chapter
7 (Investigating Government: The Executive Branch). Also see the related lists of Web sites for chapter
6 and chapter
7.
Brant Houston's Computer-Assisted
Reporting book and other helpful publications are available
from IRE and NICAR.
IRE's Extra! Extra! keeps track of recent stories by category:
See stories about campaign finance, politics, or see all of what Extra! Extra! has to offer.
The IRE Journal has several stories related
to elections:
July/August
2004:
Summer records work perfect election preparation suggests Charles
Davis, executive director of the Freedom of Information Center. He offers
several ideas and resources for journalists to pursue in preparation for
the election season.
Plenty of election year left for pursuing campaign stories, in
which Aron Pilhofer and Derek Willis of The Center for Public Integrity
identify a number of trends in campaign financing that may produce good
stories, from networked campaigns that pool individual donors to political
action committees to Internet fund raising and advertising to 527 organizations.
Mapping and analysis provide deeper grasp of Justice Department's balloting
investigation explains an investigation by Scott Fallon and Benjamin
Lesser of The Record in New Jersey that was an analysis of census
block data and voting records.
September/October
2004:
Pay-to-play reform bill aimed at government vendors by James W.Prado
Roberts of the Asbury Park (N.J.) Press
Elections and voting issues are frequent topics
in Uplink. Some of the more recent stories:
May/June 2004:
Using CAR to cover the vote: Megan Clarke of IRE and NICAR highlights
a number election stories beyond campaign finance coverage that reporters
did with the help of computer-assisted reporting.
Finding data for state elections: Derek Willis of The Center for
Public Integrity gives an overview on how several states make state campaign
finance data available electronically and in some instances the pitfalls
to avoid. He also provides some tips for handling state campaign finance
data.
Getting a handle on federal campaign cash by Aron Pilhofer of The
Center for Public Integrity gives an overview of campaign finance data
available to journalists, the pitfalls associated with it and where to
find it. He also notes the increasing popularity of Section 527 organizations,
which don't file with either federal or state elections regulatory agencies
but with the IRS.
September/October 2004:
Mapping candidate support explained how Ron Campbell of The
Orange County Register used Federal Election Commission campaign contribution
data and ArcView to show where President Bush and Democratic challenger
John Kerry were drawing financial support.
Purged voter problems: Chris Davis and Matthew Doig of the Sarasota
Herald-Tribune show a critical flaw in the database that Florida used
to purge felons from its voter rolls.
Lobbyist data rich with trips, food, gifts: Kit Wagar of The
Kansas City Star examined more than 20,000 gifts that lobbyists had
reported giving to Missouri's elected officials.
July/August 2004
Targeting voting wrongs: Benjamin Lesser and The (Hackensack,
N.J.) Record conducted a parallel investigation to the Justice
Department's investigation into possible voting rights violations in Teaneck,
N.J. A regression analysis of Census and voting results data showed some
racially polarized voting. By using ArcView and Excel, Lesser identified
a section of town that was 65 percent black. A switch from an at-large
voting system to a ward system, a prospect the Justice Department might
suggest, would help promote the election of black candidates, the newspaper's
analysis found.
IRE members can search
the indexes of The IRE Journal and Uplink. Back issues
of The IRE Journal and Uplink may be purchased for $10 each.
There is an additional $10 user fee for nonmembers. Check with the Resource
Center at 573-882-3364 or rescntr@ire.org
for availability.
Stories
To order stories from the IRE Resource Center, send e-mail to
rescntr@ire.org or call us at 573-882-3364.
Stories about campaign finance:
Story #20976
This Tallahassee Democrat investigation found that people who contributed to Gov. Jeb Bush's campaign and major donors to the Republican Party of Florida were far more likely to get plum appointments to the state's powerful boards and commissions during the Bush tenure than those who contributed to the Florida Democratic Party of Bush's opponents.
Story #20633
Jonathan Salant of The Associated Press performed a computer-assisted analysis of PAC contributions to House freshmen and found that the first-year lawmakers received more money from special interests under the jurisdiction of their committees than they received prior to their election.
Story #12586
The AP uncovered dozens of campaign-finance law violations during a computer-assisted analysis of more than 14,000 campaign contributions. The problem is made worse by obvious loopholes in Indiana's campaign laws and by low funding for the State Election Board, whose purse strings are controlled by the same lawmakers it is supposed to regulate.
Story #7855
The Center for Public Integrity reports on how campaign cash can be pocketed and spent legally; excess campaign funds are turned over for personal use. A collection of articles from around the country on the subject are attached, including Houston Chronicle, Roll Call, The Philadelphia Inquirer, Richmond Times Dispatch, The Washington Post and National Journal. (1991)
Stories about voter fraud:
Story #21339
The Kansas City Star looked at voter fraud and found that more than 300 people in Missouri and Kansas may have voted twice in the same election.
Story #21033
The (Gary, Ind.) Post-Tribune finds voters registered from vacant lots and abandoned houses and people voting who hadn't lived in cities for years or who were dead. The report also reveals how Lake County's political machine took undue advantage of the poor, uneducated and non-English speaking population. Illegal votes were found to have been cast by a police chief, election worker, a state representative and his parents, and individuals from the house of the county prosecutor.
Story #10697
KCAL-Los Angeles' investigation into California's lax election laws found thousands of examples of people illegally registered who voted in the state's elections, including noncitizens, children, the deceased and pets.
Story #13535
This story uncovered the largest double-voting scam of its kind in New York State. The story highlighted a loophole in the state's voter registration system that allows people to be registered to vote in different counties at the same time. The Times Herald-Record found that the lack of safeguards made it possible for individuals' names to be used to vote twice in the same elections in separate counties.
Story #13973
WJLA-Washington, D.C., analyzed district voter registration rolls and found that mental patients ineligible to vote were casting ballots in D.C. elections. The report exposed serious flaws in the current voter registration system, which failed to require that the courts notify election authorities when a city resident is committed and judged mentally incompetent to vote.
Story #18675
A Riverfront Times investigation reveals that in Dallas "ballot bounty hunters" are hired to fan out through minority neighborhoods and "assist" voters in applying for and casting absentee ballots. The reporter interviews a number of defrauded voters, mostly elderly African-Americans, and describes how their ballots had been taken from them.
Story #13530
Minnesota's voter turnout is among the highest in the nation due in part to aggressive "get out the vote" campaigns. WCCO-Minneapolis finds that even those citizens who are not supposed to vote, such as convicted felons still on probation, do so anyway. This computer-assisted investigation matched voter records with felon records and using hidden cameras watched as convicted felons voted on election day.
Stories about the voting process:
Story #17033
A five-part series by The Wall Street Journal on America's voting system reveals the loopholes in the voting system such as lack of resources, limited polling hours, how the process deters minorities, problems during counting, and uses of technology.
Story #6296
WITI-Milwaukee reveals that thousands of people were not voting because they did not understand how to use the city's new computerized voting system.
Search for more
stories in IRE's Resource Center.
Tipsheets
To order tipsheets from the IRE Resource Center, send e-mail to
rescntr@ire.org or call us at 573-882-3364.
See all IRE
tipsheets about campaign finance.
Highlighted tipsheets:
Tipsheet #2018
This tipsheet looks at four major sites that provide Federal Election Commission data for downloading: The Federal Election Commission, Politicalmoneyline.com, the Campaign Finance Information Center, and the American University Campaign Finance Site. The tipsheet explains what specific data can be obtained from each Web site and how the data can be downloaded.
Tipsheet #2163
Jonathan Salant of Bloomberg News describes five Web sites that offer detailed information related to different aspects of campaign finances. These include the matching of campaign contributions to votes won, the giving patterns of local companies, and attempts at expanding the base of fund raisers, among others.
Tipsheet #2130
This is the first election cycle that state parties are without national party soft money, which accounted for about 25 percent of their contributions during 2001-02. This tipsheet explains the rules for state party funding and offers story ideas.
Tipsheet #2289
This tipsheet provides a list of sources for tracking down campaign finance information.
Tipsheet #1566
Jeff Thomas of the Colorado Springs Gazette explains how his newsrooms produced comprehensive maps showing election results by streets on deadline using CAR technology. The hardcopy file includes a number of very detailed examples.
Tipsheet #1291
If you're researching potential links between campaign donations and legislative actions, this tipsheet is a good place to begin. There is also a list of federal and state Web sites.
Tipsheet #1919
This tipsheet directs reporters through the use of available databases that contain data about state and local campaign financing. The tipsheet lists several Web sites, including some addresses dealing with individual cities, that are useful when writing about this topic.
Tipsheet #2139
This tipsheet includes a list of general sources about the problems involved with electronic voting. Documented problems with voting systems are discussed as well as proposed solutions to the problems.
Tipsheet #2210
This tipsheet gives information on "527 committees" and some story suggestions. It includes a brochure from the Center of Public Integrity.
Tipsheet #165
The authors of a computer-assisted story that caused the results of an election to be nullified because of fraud in absentee-balloting tell how they did it; includes a description of the story and techniques, sample fraudulent ballots, computer printouts and other background information.
Search for
more tipsheets in IRE's Resource Center.
Web Links
| For
more information, contact: |
Jeff Porter
Database Library Director
IRE and NICAR
E-mail: jeff@ire.org
Voice: 573-882-1982
Fax: 573-882-5431 |
Beth Kopine
Research Director
IRE Resource Center
E-mail: beth@ire.org
Voice: 573-882-6668
Fax: 573-884-8151 |
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