IN THE NEWS
IRE and NICAR offer data, stories and tipsheets to help cover the latestOther resources for covering the news
Resources for Election 2008
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.
IRE Publications
May/June 2007
"Death Index: Hunt continues for elusive corpses rising to cast a vote", John Ferro of the Poughkeepsie Journal. Ferro discusses how he joined the Social Security Death Index database with the New York state voter registration database. He then had to double check that all the matches he found were actually deceased; some of the names in the death index are actually still alive. He describes the CAR aspects of his story, as well as the shoe-leather reporting that went in to verifying the deceased state of the overlapping names.
Nov./Dec. 2006
"Duped Voters: Records show residents tricked into switching party affiliatons", by Kimberly Kindy, Tony Saavedra, Brian Joseph of the Orange County Register. Orange County Register reporters exposed voter-registration fraud. Individuals were approached to sign petitions on such things as cancer research and duped into registering as Republicans. The investigation spurred the California Legislature to consider the prohibition of voter registration workers being paid per signature obtained.
March/April 2005
"Vote Records: Routing shredding, recording errors make tracking voter fraud difficult", Greg Reeves. Reeves discusses his own experience reporting on voter fraud, and offers suggestions for other reporters who want to cover the topic. Some of his suggestions have to do with the CAR aspects of the story (how to match databases, etc) and other suggestions include searching for documents and listening to personal stories.
Elections and voting issues are frequent topics in Uplink. Some of the more recent stories:
Jan./Feb. 2005
"Elections: Post-vote politics, payoffs", Andrea Lorenz. This article offers ideas for using election data even after the votes are in. For example, Lorenz suggests using campaign contribution data to determine top donors and then examining policy decisions to see if they match up with the political preferences of big donors. Lorenz also offers examples of stories about voter data and structural changes in politics.
IRE members can access archives of the IRE Journal online. Copies of Uplink materials can be requested from the IRE Resource Center. Call 573-882-3364 or email
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 voter fraud:
Story #22583
The Roanoake Times (Roanoake, VA) chronicled election fraud in two small communities. In the first community, one candidate's mother headed up the registrar's office, while in the other community, Gate City, the mayor manipulated the absentee voting system to his advantage, sometimes filling the forms of elderly absentee voters himself.
Story #22556
The Detroit News found negligence in election oversight and election fraud in Detroit. Reporters found that city employees were coaxing nursing home residents to vote, ballots were sent to juvenile detention homes, the voting rolls had 300,000 registrants who had moved or died, and people were voting from abandoned homes and vacant lots. After the story ran, the FBI and state officials seized city voting records.
Story #22275
This series by the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel takes an extensive look at problems that exist in the election system in Wisconsin. According to this investigation, the state runs a high risk of massive recounts in future presidential elections because of the inaccuracy of the election data and voter registration. What they found were thousands of voters with invalid address, ineligible voters who were allowed to cast their ballots on election day, and polling place log books listing hundreds of people as having voted twice. This series by the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel prompted a mayoral task force to investigate election problems in Milwaukee, state-wide audit of the election system, as well as a state-federal investigation into voter fraud.
Story #21805
This CAR investigation by the Times of Northwest Indiana (Munster, Ind.) compared voting records and Social Security death records and found that deceased residents voted in the primary election in 2003. It was also found that thousands of dead people remain as registered voters on the voter rolls. State and local officials say this can create an 'opportunity for ghostly corruption.'
Stories about the voting process:
Story #22286
Zvika Krieger of the Yale Herald explored a particularly contentious election for the New Haven Board of Aldermen. Krieger explains how the New Haven mayor's office tried to manipulate the election, and how the student population was affected.
Stories about campaign finance:
Story #22571
This series from the Austin American-Statesman explores the effect of the Republican sweep in 2002 of the Texas state government and the controversy behind the funding that got them there. This three year investigation was part of Tom DeLay's downfall, and led criminal investigations and civil lawsuits against the state's largest business organization.
Story #21888
This book by The Center for Public Integrity is the third in a series that provides investigative profiles and personal histories of all of the major presidential candidates and their latest campaign finance data. It reveals how special interests preselect candidates for president and influence their policies and platforms. This edition also notes the top 50 patrons of the two major political parties.
Story #21747
A year-long investigation by The Times (Chattanooga, Tenn.) into the role of Tennessee campaign contributions in state politics, and how candidates used these contribution funds. The Times found that candidates filed inaccurate disclosure reports and that there was little to no examination of the documents. They also took a look at Tennessee money in federal elections, and found that local races were not competitive, and that Republicans in particular were funneling contributions to out-of-state candidates.
Story #21728
This online story from the Center for Public Integrity looks at the working of the Section 527 Committees. These tax-exempt associations raised and spent almost half-billion dollars in 2003-04. The increase in the fund-raising was driven by 53 committees that focus largely on presidential elections.
Search for more stories in IRE's Resource Center.
Tipsheets
IRE members can download tipsheets from the IRE Web site. If you have questions or problems, please contact the IRE Resource Center at 573-882-3364 or email .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
- Stateline.org
- OpenSecrets.org
- Federal Election Commission
- Project Vote Smart
- The Buying of the President 2008
- Sites for state races: data sources, specific state sites
- Sites to put the cash flow in context
- RTNDF News Resources page
- Project on Government Oversight
- Research and advocacy organizations
- Academic sources
For more information, contact: Jeremy Milarsky
Database Library Director
IRE and NICAR
E-mail: jeremy@ire.org
Voice: 573-882-1982
Fax: 573-884-5544Beth Kopine
Research Director
IRE Resource Center
E-mail: beth@ire.org
Voice: 573-882-6668
Fax: 573-884-8151
