The IRE Resource Center is a major research library containing more than 23,250 investigative stories — both print and broadcast. These stories are searchable online or by contacting the Resource Center directly (573-882-3364 or rescntr@ire.org) where a researcher can help you pinpoint what you need. Browse or search the tipsheet section of our library below. Stories are not available for download but can be easily ordered by contacting the Resource Center:
Search results for "ballot initiatives" ...
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Voter Patrol
The NEWS4 I-Team dug through more than 600 phone and email tips to break three major election stories before, during and immediately after the presidential election. About two weeks before the election, we asked viewers to tell us when they saw problems when they voted. The response was immediate. Our two-man team went through every tip and beat out the AP, the Washington Post, the Baltimore Sun, the Richmond Times-Dispatch and other local stations on the biggest election stories in our area. Our first story revealed absentee ballots sent out in Maryland were missing their second page, which contained the most contested ballot initiatives including legalized gambling, same-sex marriage and the DREAM Act. This story was picked up across the nation and led to statements made by the Maryland Governor and the various interest groups involved in the ballot issues.
Tags: Elections; presidential elections; votes; presidential reporting; ballot issues
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Who Can Vote? Comprehensive Database of U.S. Voter Fraud Uncovers No Evidence That Photo ID Is Needed
“Who Can Vote?” is the 2012 project of News21, a multimedia investigative reporting initiative funded by the Carnegie Corporation of New York and the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation and headquartered at the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication at Arizona State University. Twenty-four students from 11 universities across the country worked on the project under the direction of journalism professionals. The project, launched just before the 2012 political conventions, consists of more than 20 in-depth reports and rich multimedia content that includes interactive databases and data visualizations, video profiles and photo galleries. Student reporters conducted an exhaustive public records search and built a comprehensive data base of voter fraud cases that revealed: • Since 2000, while fraud has occurred, the number of cases is infinitesimal. • In-person voter impersonation on Election Day, which prompted 37 state legislatures to enact or consider tough voter ID laws, is virtually non-existent. Only 10 such cases over more than a decade were reported. • There is more fraud in absentee ballots and voter registration than any other category. The analysis shows 329 cases of absentee ballot fraud and 364 cases of registration fraud. A required photo ID at the polls would not have prevented these cases. • Voters make a lot of mistakes, from people accidentally voting twice to voting in the wrong precinct. However, few cases reveal a coordinated effort to change election results. • Election officials make a lot of mistakes, giving voters ballots when they’ve already voted, for instance. Election workers are often confused about voters’ eligibility requirements.
Tags: elections; fraud; public records; voters; ballot
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Takings Initiatives Accountability Project: The Center for Public Integrity investigates ballot initiatives that would radically change land-use and environmental regulation in five Western states
The [non-partisan]Center for Public Integrity investigated 2006 "ballot initiatives that were designed to radically change land-use and environmental regulation in five Western states. They discovered that a trio of "secret donors" accounted for 99% of the propostions' bankrolls, and some of the initiatives did not comply with campaign-finance and other regulations. Then the Center revealed that 85 percent of the funding was coming from a single wealthy real estate investor and Libertarian activist, Howard RIch All but the Arizona inititative failed at the ballot. The Center for Public Integrity set up a stand-alone website-- www.takings initiatives.org-- and filed more than 50 articles on it. "Our general practice-- and a novel one as far as we can tell-- was to mount verbatim transcripts of the interviews on our website, including audio recordings where available. We sought to allow proponents, opponents funders and experts to have a chance to present their side of the story in their own words." The Center also checked with state and federal regulators for compliance of relevant laws and regulations.
Tags: Takings Initiatives; takings clause; ballot initiatives; land-use regulation; environmental regulation; tax-exempt organizations; Howard Rich; Andrea Millen Rich; Council for Responsible Government; William A. Wilson; state campaign-finance filings; public records requests; state freedom of information requests; America At Its Best; Americans for Limited Government; John Tillman; Howard Ahmanson; Fieldstead & Company; property rights; prefessional signature-gatherers; Colorado At Its Best; term limits; nonprofit advocacy organizations; Sam Adams Alliance; Sam Adams Foundation; Legislative Education Action Drive; Parents in Charge Foundation; Social Security Choice.org; Illinois Charitable Trust Bureau; educational vouchers; tuition tax credits; National Taxpayers Union; First Class Education; Susquehanna International Group; Jeffrey YAss; Cato Institute; Alliance for School Choice; Decision Education Foundation; Eric Brooks; Susan Mitchell; Pete Sepp; Kern Family Foundation; Generac Power Systems, Inc.; Milton Friedman; Taxpayer Bill of Rights; TABOR; Laird Maxwell; This House is MY Home; John Whitehead; Lower Manhattan Development Corporation; Exoxemis, Inc.; Family Farm Preservation Pact; Citizens for Community Protection; Kelo v. City of New London; eminent domain; New York Millionaires Assistance Act; Wallace Global Fund; Nicholas C. Dranias; PRNewswire; Eric O'Keefe; getliberty.com; George Soros
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Incomes, discarded votes may be linked
"Voters in Florida's poorer counties were more than twice as likely as those in a more affluent ones to have their votes for president disregarded," according to a Tallahassee Democrat analysis of the 2000 election... The correlation between discarded ballots and income was stronger than the link between the type of balloting machine used and disregarded ballots. The fact that lower-income counties are likely to have more elderly and new minority voters may also predispose those counties to have more votes disregarded. More first-time and inexperienced minority voters may have gone to the polls after a statewide get-out-the-vote campaign initiated by the state Democratic party and labor and civil rights groups. In counties using optical-scanner ballots, presidential votes were not counted 3.4 percent of the time, compared to 4.7 for those counties using punch-card ballots. However, counties using punch-card balloting had higher average incomes than those using optical-scanner balloting: $24, 849 for punch cars and $21, 464 for optical scanners."
Tags: elections; elderly voters; board of elections; error rates; income levels; presidential election 2000; Bush; Gore; discarded votes; Florida recount
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Ballot Busters
Education Week investigates the effect "citizen initatives" have on education legislation. Lindsay looks specifically at the state of Oregon -- Oregon was the first state to put initatives on the ballot, and it currently is the reigning king of initiatives. Oregon's ballot was the longest one during the 2000 election.
Tags: education; politics; initiatives; citizens; money Oregon
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No title (id: 10867)
In early 1994, four separate pro-casino ballot initiative drive began in Florida. By spring, conventional political wisdom held that at least one of these drives would pass, and there was much speculation about what would happen if all four found voter approval. In anticipaiton of casino gamblig becoming legal, the Florida Legislature spent much of its spring session holding hearing on casino regulation, while promoter from Donald Trump to Thomas Kramer announced multi-million dollar deals to build casinos across Florida.
Tags: Longman
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No title (id: 9372)
Westword reports on the proliferation of paid petition circulators in Colorado state ballot campaigns, which are run by out-of-state companies that conduct the campaigns on various issues; money has tainted direct citizen initiatives, making it easier for special interests to dominate the process, June 10, 1992.
Tags: CO McGrath
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No title (id: 8702)
Village Voice (New York) exposes the latest tactic of the religious right in its fight against gay and lesbian rights: the promotion of statewide ballot initiatives in six states that write anti-gay bias into law; the potential laws are based on the U.S. Supreme Court's Hardwick decision giving states special permission to discriminate against gays, June 2, 1992.