readings

What Palm Beach County Voters Said About the Ballot Layout Within hours of the opening of the polls on November 7, many voters in Palm Beach County reported to election officials that they were confused by the ballot. Source: The NY Times	Ken Dempsy, top, of Lake Worth, Fla., at the Palm Beach Government Center on Friday.
Casper R. Taylor, House speaker in Maryland, worries about a loss of respect for the system.	What Top Democrats Are Telling Gore Some senior figures in the Democratic party, in Washington and in the states, are using interviews with reporters to convey the message to Vice President Gore that, if he is still behind in Florida after the overseas absentee ballots are counted, he should concede the election to Governor Bush rather than seek judicial intervention Source: The NY Times
Turning to Litigation to Settle an Election Both the Bush and the Gore campaigns have filed or supported lawsuits regarding the disputed vote count in Florida. However, the legal strategies being pursued by the two sides are very different, with the Republican lawsuits being filed in federal court before appointed judges with life tenure and the Democratic lawsuits being filed in state court before elected judges. source: The New York Times	James A. Baker III at news conference yesterday in Tallahassee, Fla.
Palm Beach County election supervisor Theresa LePore has taken heat for designing a confusing ballot.	Many Vote-Counting Systems are Used in the United States Five different types of voting systems are used for American elections: punch cards, lever machines, optical scanners, touch-screens, and paper ballots. What is the future of these methods of casting and counting ballots? Could Internet voting be the wave of the future? Source: The LA times
Hillary Clinton Advocates Elimination of the Electoral College Senator-Elect Hillary Rodham Clinton announced in a post-election press conference that she will press for a constitutional amendment for direct popular vote of the President as one of her priorities as a member of Congress. Because of her national visibility, Clinton is likely to be one of the most influential junior senators of the minority party in many years. source: The New York times	In Albany, Hillary Rodham Clinton stopped at the local airport on Friday on a tour of six upstate cities to thank supporters and emphasize her plans to help the region's economy.
World seeks lessons from US vote The elections made headlines around the world	International Press Reaction to US Electoral Uncertainty Newspapers in nations around the world that have been criticized by the U.S. government for lacking free and fair elections comment on the aftermath of the U.S. election. Source: the BBC
Should the U.S. Change Its 18th and 19th Century Voting Systems? Some of the most interesting commentary on the results of the U.S. election has come from British newspaper columnists. Jonathan Freedland notes how Americans' attachment to 19th century electoral forms has contributed to the uncertain outcome of last weekÕs election. He argues that the U.S. could learn some lessons about conducting elections from the U.K. Source: The Guardian
How Other Disputed Election Results Have Been Handled Disputed election results have been resolved by the courts, but never before in a presidential election. One of those disputes, involving a Democratic congressional primary eventually won by Rep. William Delahunt (Middlebury '64), led Massachusetts officials to ban further use of the punch-card ballot at issue in Palm Beach County. Source: The washington post	Scenarios If Election Dispute Is Not Resolved by December 18 The 12th Amendment to the Constitution provides that the electors are supposed to meet in their respective states on December 18 and send their votes to Washington, where they will be counted before a joint session of Congress on January 6 - a session that will be presided over by the "President of the Senate," who will, on January 6, be Vice President Al Gore. But what happens if Florida's electors are unable to cast their votes on December 18? Source: The Washington Post
Is There a Danger in Sticking Too Close to the Center? British political analyst Richard Sennett argues that Al Gore and the Democrats could have won a convincing victory had they done more to appeal to the supporters of Ralph Nader and the non-voters. Source: The Guardian	Government by Executive Order With the budgets for many federal agencies still in legislative limbo on Capitol Hill, the Clinton administration plans to issue executive orders to carry out a number of policies that are included in the stalled budget bills. These executive orders would go into effect shortly before Clinton's term ends on January 20. Source: The New York Times

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