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 "vote- buying" ...
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Behind Closed Doors, Kentucky City Buys Controversial Building For $1.3 Million
Danville, Kentucky’s purchase of the former Boyle County Industrial Storage Facility, better known as the BISCO building, drew a lot of controversy along with legal battles during the second half of 2012. During its Aug. 13 meeting, Danville City Commission unanimously voted to buy the building at auction for $1,237,550. However, a bidder hired by the city had already won the property in auction three days before. Also, on the day of the auction city officials had cut a check for 10 percent of the BISCO building’s purchase price. Residents raised concerns about the secretive nature of the purchase, especially since then-Commissioner Ryan Montgomery’s father, Mike, had a long-standing business relationship with the building’s former owner Mitchell Barnes. After being publicly prodded, Mayor Bernie Hunstad also acknowledged that his wife, Susan, worked for the bidder the city hired to handle the auction process.
Tags: City officials; city government; auction
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Washington's Power 25
Fortune reports on a survey they conducted that ranks the top groups that exert legislative influence in Washington. The survey rebuts the idea that campaign contributions buy power in Washington. Interest groups are more valued for the vote they can deliver than for cash. The top ranked organizations were clustered towards the center and right of the political spectrum. Fortune tries to uncover the mechanisms that really drive Washington.
Tags: lobbyists; term limits; political ads; unions
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The Clan Behind The Curtain
The failure of the punch cards in Florida has the voting machine industry ramped up to get a hold of any new voting machine business that may ride on the tails of the $3 billion subsidies under consideration by Congress. The Shoups, formerly the "first family of voting" and makers of the "U.S. Standard Voting Machine" are getting back into the business. Shoup senior is actually a convicted felon, and was fined and served a suspended sentence for offering to cast a better light on city commissioner Marge Tartaglione if she would give him the city's voting-machine repair business.
Tags: government relations; touch-screen technology; SVS; ATM; Automatic Voting Machine; local elections; vote- buying; vote tampering; election monitoring; SCARE; Florida recount; Bush; Gore; U.S. Standard Voting Machine; fraud; Ron Budd; Ransom Shoup II; election commissioner; Danaher 1242 c. 1982
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Raising Cane: Looming Sugar Crisis May Sour Honeymoon Of Mexico's President
Mexico's Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI, coddled the Mexican sugar-cane industry, using it as a massive rural vote-buying machine. Now that the PRI is out of power, Mexico's sugar-cane industry, one of the underpinnings of the Mexican economy, is crumbling under billions in debt. Rural peasant unions are threatening to rise up against Mexico's new president, Vicente Fox Quesada.
Tags: sugar; sugar cane; vicente fox; PRI
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Dirty Votes. The Race for Miami Mayor.
Questionable ballots found in Miami vote. $10 buys inner-city vote for mayor. How non-Miami residents helped pick the mayor. Dubious tactics tilted mayoral votes. Felons vote, too - but it's a crime. Miami commissioner indicted. Official, allies to surrender on vote-fraud charges. Cover-up allegedly revealed in tapes.
Tags: voter fraud; Miami; mayor; felon; crime; cover-up; election; campaign finance.
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No title (id: 13861)
The Buying of the President is the first book ever written that tracks the relationships between the major presidential candidates and their "career patrons." Also included are invesitgative profiles of the presidential candidates and their financial dealings. (Jan. 11, 1996)
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No title (id: 8872)
Tribune-Review (Greensburg, Pa.) reports on the abuse of a secret slush fund in the Pennsylvania state government that is controlled by state legislators and allows them to buy votes and enhance their political prestige at home; legislators spent $183 million since 1988 with no public oversight, Feb. 28 - March 7, 1993.
Tags: PA Gazarik CAJ
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No title (id: 5659)
Dallas Morning News investigates the Army's contract to purchase 500 Oshkosh trucks; discovers members of the House Armed Services Committee were paid $2,000 each to attend a breakfast held by Oshkosh just hours before they voted to make the Army buy the trucks, May 2 and June 10, 1988.
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Winning at any Cost
Courier-Journal investigates Kentucky elections and finds vote-buying, illicit cash, influence peddling, poor regulation and public apathy, Oct. 11 - 18, 1987.