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 "election data" ...
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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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Spa shooter sidestepped police
Following a mass shooting inside a suburban Milwaukee spa, reporters John Diedrich and Gina Barton dug into the history of shooter Radcliffe Haughton with police in his community of Brown Deer. They uncovered a series of failures by police that left a dangerous man on the street, emboldening him to become more violent. Let down by police, Zina Haughton sought protection with a restraining order. She was dead days after it was issued. Diedrich and Barton found Brown Deer did not follow the state’s mandatory arrest law in such cases and failed to uphold its most basic duty: protecting the public. The most remarkable finding was that Brown Deer police actually retreated from a standoff with Haughton even though officers had saw him point what appeared to be a rifle at his wife. The police chief was defiant. Elected officials in Brown Deer deferred to the chief, who operates with little oversight in the village, the reporters found. The case revealed a loophole in state’s domestic violence laws: No one could hold local police accountable for failing to follow the law as designed by legislators. Data reporter Ben Poston joined the effort to examine how many domestic violence cases referred to prosecutors result in charges, thus holding other parts of the criminal justice system accountable.
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Big Money Slides From WFP To City Campaigns; All In The Family
“The Working Families Party is an increasingly powerful third political party in New York which, due to quirky state election laws, is able to cross-endorse candidates and get involved in other parties’ primaries.” The question that everyone has been asking is how WFP (Working Families Party) finances its extensive operations. The first article reveals this very question. The WFP owned a secretive political consulting company, which uses the same resources as WFP and in apparent opposition to New York City’s campaign finance laws. The second article reveals that WFP not only has two arms, but there are in fact four arms. These four arms show the benefits received by WFP are of a political party, a non-profit, and a for-profit.
Tags: Working Families Party(WFP); New York; Data and Field Services(DFS); Campaigns; Politics; Politicians
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District 13 Undervote
Tamman used public records laws to get copies of electronic files that recorded every vote cast on each of the 1,500 electronic voting machines used in District 13 during the race to succeed Katherine Harris. He performed intense statistical analysis to look for trends in voting. He found that party loyalists were mostly responsible for the missing 18,000 votes.
Tags: voting; elections; data analysis; voters
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Bundle of Trouble
These articles examine the shady fundraising practice of "bundling" campaign donations. The articles spotlight fundraiser Norman Hsu, who has used bundling to raise money for Hillary Clinton's 2008 presidential campaign. The investigation looks at the impact of this practice on modern campaigns, and also delves into Hsu's shady past.
Tags: campaign finance reform; fundraising; Federal Election Commission; politics; data analysis; fraud
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Investigation of Election Problems
This series is 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.
Tags: CAR; election data; voter fraud; November 2004 Election; absentee ballots; Election Commission; polls; challenged ballots; FOIA; ballots
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Suburban money fuels mayor's race in St. Paul
The authors used computer assisted reporting to map out where campaign donations for the 2005 St. Paul mayoral election were coming from. They found that the largest proportion of contributions came from people in the suburbs rather than the city.
Tags: elections; campaign donations; mapping; GIS; CAR; data analysis; voters; city government
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Election Analyses
By using PRIZM-NE, Claritas Corporation's lifestyle segmentation system, together with zipcodes collected during USA Today-CNN Gallup polling, the authors were able to analyze geographical and socioeconomic data. They were then able to profile such specific groups as Catholics or seniors with greater detail, not just the usual groupings used such as male vs female and white vs black. They found for example that veteran status was more indicative of politics than age. They also showed that the gap between the political attitudes of married vs unmarried women reached a record 38 percent, which was much larger than the 11 percent gap between men and women. Such data have traditionally only been available after exit polls, but the USA-Today team were able to track changes during the lead-up to the 2004 election.
Tags: polls; elections; presidential politics; data analysis
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The buying of the president 2004
This book 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.
Tags: BOOK; campaign finance; elections; political fund-raising; 527s; politics; CAR; computer-assisted reporting; corporate donations
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Under the Influence: Money in Trenton
In the face of campaign contribution reforms, the staff at The Record perform an extensive investigation into the major contributors for candidates in the 2003 New Jersey state legislature elections. What they found was that candidates and contributors have discovered new ways around contribution limits through a process called "wheeling," which transfers large sums of money into key candidates' races. Using data from the New Jersey Election Law Enforcement Commission, reporters discovered a number of flaws in the information that had gone unnoticed, and contributors who had gone unpunished. According to the questionnaire, "The Record learned that the toughest penalty these legislatures would face was a fine, and even that was unlikely if they returned the funds befor ethe commission learned about it."
Tags: CAR; New Jersey Election Law Enforcement Commission; Division of Financial Recording; wheeling; lobbying