FOCAL POINT IS if >:■ if w ■! ■- PHOTO BY DOUG SMITH Yes, the ARC was dedicated on Thursday. But there is much bigger news out there than that: We have a swimming pool! And all those present at the ARC dedication got to throw fun little blue and white balls into the pool with Dean Lilley. How fun is that? However, it was rather disappointing that no one fell in during the festivities. FLORIDA Shortly after this argument, all three networks retracted their projection and said Florida was too close to call. Meanwhile, Gore had taken needed wins in Pennsylvania, Michigan and California, while Bush hung on with wins throughout the Rocky Mountain region and his home state of Texas. Florida remained a toss-up until both candidates pulled within 25 electoral votes of the elusive 270. It was then that the networks announced that Bush had taken Florida and had won the U.S. Presidency. The word reached Bush and Gore, which resulted in the Vice President conceding to Bush in a phone call. The projection was made with less than 95% of the total vote counted in Florida. According to Florida's Secretary of State’s website, Gore pulled within 600 votes of the projected winner with 99% counted. When this number was presented to the networks, the state of Florida was taken away from Bush and once again dubbed a toss-up state. The results were so close (estimated to be a 1,700-vote lead for Bush) that a recount was required, which lasted until late Thursday night. BLAIR the day, lecturing on the following topics: Money, Banking, and Economic Activity; Strategic- Management and Business Policy; and Introduction to Advertising. Also, Blair was scheduled to speak with members of the Behrend Beacon on Wednesday and relate his experiences as the first editor of the LOCAL RESULTS Three state offices were up for grabs this election, but all three were won by the incumbent. State Attorney General Mike Fisher, State Auditor General Bob Casey, Jr., and State Treasurer Barbara Hafer all retained their offices. The closest race of the three was the fight for State Treasurer, where in a very dirty campaign with allegations of wrongdoings on both sides, Hafer retained her office against former State Treasurer Catherine Baker Li A After all votes and all absentee ballots, excluding those overseas, Bush maintains a 229 vote lead at press time “This was ten times more exciting and nerve-wracking than the previous elections," said Julie Lafferty, a political science major. The election was the closest since John F. Kennedy defeated Richard Nixon by just over 118,574 votes. Not recently has the entire presidency gone down to the last state. The night didn’t end with a clear winner but since then, that A 1 Gore seems assured to win the overall popular vote. If Gore loses Florida, this would mark the first time since the 1888 election that the candidate winning the popular vote lost the presidency due to the Electoral College. A 1 Gore is winning by one percent overall, yet could lose 271 - 267 in electoral votes, if Bush wins Florida and Gore maintains a lead in Oregon. The last time that this has happened was in the Election of 1888, when Benjamin Harrison defeated Grover Cleveland, 233-168 in electoral votes, while losing by nearly 100,000 popular votes. The possible 4-electoral vote Nittany Cub , Behrend’s first student newspaper. However, Blair’s plane was unable to land in Erie twice due to fog, and he did not get into town until 11:00 p.m. Wednesday night. Blair made some comparisons to the campus now and the way the school was at its inception in 1948. He lavished extensive praise on T. One of the most interesting local races was the fight for State Senator from the 25 lh District. Bill Slocum, the Republican candidate for the office, had been resigned office earlier this year after being convicted of dumping raw sewage into a creek, earning him the nickname “Sludge” Slocum. By the time he resigned, Slocum had already won the Republican primary for a new term and could not be taken off the ballot 'gr S3® f" 't ; i I : I %, j? %... FROM FRONT PAGE difference in the 2000 election is the closest in over a century. In 1916, Woodrow Wilson defeated Charles E. Hughes by 23 electoral votes. If Bush wins Florida, this will be the closest electoral count since Rutherford B. Hayes’ one-vote victory in 1876. Behrend reaction among students is mixed. Angelique Parker, a sixth semester MIS major, said, “the electoral votes defeat the entire purpose of voting.” She added, “I think that the entire election process makes people not want to vote.” The process was brought more to the forefront when questions arose in the counting of votes in Florida. Despite a recount, confusion occurred with the format of the ballot in Palm Beach. Some voters who wished to vote for Gore think they accidentally marked the hole for Pat Buchanan, the Reform Party candidate. There is still controversy surrounding the format, which has brought forth the idea of a revote. With the results in Florida so close, Behrend students again remain split. Parker feels, “to resubmit votes would not be fair to some, because everyone now knows that this decides who becomes the next president.” Reed Ferguson, who helped turn the land Mary Behrend had donated to the school into a college in just a few months. As Blair put it, “Behrend has grown greatly since its humble beginnings.” At the end of Blair’s speech he posed for photographs with Dr. Lilley and Dr. Spanier. as the Republican candidate. Slocum refused to drop out of the race, withstanding intense pressure from his party. A local Republican, Joseph Scamati, ran as an independent and was endorsed by the Republican Party. This is a heavily Republican district, but because the vote was so split, Democrat, Joseph Calla almost won. In the end, though, Scamati won the election in a close three-way race with 33 percent of the vote. SATURDAY EtfSSSM # MOSTLY CLOUDY HIGH 48 LOW 39 lolice A.nd Safety 10/31/2000 17:35 A coordinator reported a possible indecent assault. 11/01/2000 01:55 While in the S lot, an officer witnessed a vehicle striking a parked SUV. As a result, the driver was cited for careless driving. 11/01/2000 11:10 A report of a potential conflict between an instructor and some students in a 1400 hour class. 11/02/2000 00:15 A staff member informed a duty officer that she noticed a ceiling projector missing from Benson 185. 11/03/2000 12:15 A complainant reported the theft of a Swiss army watch. 11/04/2000 20:00 An RA reported vandalism to a Lion Cash machine. 11/06/2000 18:30 A student reported having received a harassing phone call earlier today. SILENCED Office (ECVR) who told her that there was no record of her registration. They accused her of double registering in two counties, which would cancel out her registration. Before the groups on campus began their registration drives, they were told by the voter registration office that students who live at Behrend but aren’t from this area originally have to vote by absentee ballot. Supervisor Sharon Drayer said, “college students are supposed to vote in their home district.” Drayer now denies ever saying that students must vote in their home district. So far, there have been 16 students that have complained about being turned away from voting this past Tuesday. All of these students said they registered before the deadline and filled out their forms with their Erie County address. Drayer says that one of three things could have happened. The students could have put their Behrend address, but recorded their county as being the one that they are from when they are not attending Behrend. Students also may have forgotten to fill out their birthdate or forgot to fill in their party affiliation. All the forms filled out by students at the College Republicans, College Democrats and Beacon tables were checked over before being taken to the ECVR office. College Democrats president Troy Frederick said, “we had the voter registration office show us how the forms needed to be filled out. We checked all the forms to make sure they were filled out correctly.” Other students who said that they were turned away for having not registered said that their forms were checked and cleared before they left the registration tables. One student who was turned away on election day was Maureen P. Gallagher, who just beat the deadline by filling her form out on the last day that registrations were being accepted. Gallagher lives at Behrend all year while she is attending school. Her driver’s license, however, has her residence being just outside Pittsburgh. This shouldn’t matter, according to the law. Drayer assures that the lost registration has nothing to do with whether or not the person being registered is from the area or not. To counter Drayer’s reasoning as to why student forms might not have been processed, Gallagher asserts that she wrote her local address of Wesley ville on the form. She also said that she filled out her form at the College Democrats table, where all forms were checked. Weekend \Ve\d?h* Outlook SUNDAY MOSTLY CLOUDY HIGH 46 LOW 37 Other students, including Nicole Clouse, Jaimi Bonczar, Neil Makadia, Kim Burkey and Dale Lamb also say that they filled their forms out correctly and had them checked by the group that was sponsoring the registration table. Makadia called the ECVR office and was told that his form was probably handed in late. Christine Kleck, a Behrend student and a resident of Erie, turned in her form with the pile of forms that were taken to the ECVR office by the Beacon. Kleck was registered, Makadia wasn’t. Drayer said that no forms were discarded. They were either accepted or mailed to the county that the student accidently put on the form. However, the students whose forms were lost said they didn’t put their home county on their forms, which makes some ask the question, “where did the forms go if they weren’t accepted or mailed to another county?” None of these are on record anywhere at the ECVR office. Drayer said that the reason most people weren’t called if their forms were filled out wrong was because they didn’t have the time to make the phone calls. Because of lost forms, several Behrend students were not able to vote in one of the closest elections in history. Makadia commented, “I really wanted to vote in this election due to how close the results were projected to be.” Some students were forced to drive home to vote. Gallagher stated, “1 understand that mistakes happen, but they didn’t have any way of dealing with the problems." She added, “they should have something in place if that should happen.” Dr. Robert Speel, associate professor of political science said, “Erie County may not have been in compliance with Pennsylvania law on election day.” He added that, “students like Gallagher had the right to see a local judge on election day to discuss their voter registration disputes.” Speel, as a college student in Philadelphia, used to be heavily involved in election day voter registration disputes. He said, “there is a Pennsylvania law requiring all counties to have judges available on election day to deal with any election disputes, including voter registration problems.” He called the Bureau of Elections in the Secretary of State’s office in Harrisburg and was told the law requiring judges to preside over election day disputes is found in Purdon’s Pennsylvania Statues section 3046, in a section called Duties of the Common Pleas Courts on days of FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 10, 2000 MONDAY SHOWERS HIGH 48 LOW 35 primaries and elections. Speel contacted both the Erie County Voter Registration Office and the office of Rusty Cunningham, president judge of Erie County Court of Common Pleas on Thursday, November 2, to ask if a judge would be available in Erie County on election day to hear from students who claimed their voter registrations had been lost. Speel gave Cunningham’s office the legal citation for this requirement, but they never responded to him until election day, at which time they referred him to Erie County Election Board Solicitor Beth Mole. Speel talked to Mole who continued to come up with reasons why student voter registrations might be missing. But Speel told her that was irrelevant to the issue of whether a judge would be available that day to hear voter registration disputes. Speel said, “1 am very disappointed in the behavior of our local officials. Instead of making all efforts to make sure they were complying with the law and allowing students who followed all the legal requirements to vote, the officials seemed to make every effort to avoid the whole issue of Pennsylvania law and kept making claims about how students don’t know how to fill out registration forms.” Florinda Fabrizio, Erie County Clerk of Elections was quoted on Channel 24, WJET-TV, last night as saying that the problem involved students wanting to vote in two different counties, Erie County and their home county. He implied that it was the students that were confused on policies on election day, not the people in charge of the local elections. However, students Kim Burkey and Scott Dzemyan both went to the Erie County Courthouse on election day to dispute their lost registration forms. When arriving, they were told that they could not see a judge, an act that is in violation of Pennsylvania law. Burkey said that she was treated rudely and was disappointed that she was kept from voting by people that are supposed to be encouraging students to vote. She said, “people complain that young people don’t vote. I ran around Erie trying to get the chance to do my civic duty and was denied.” Frederick, the president of College Democrats, plans to start a drive to get all Behrend students registered to vote in Erie County. This would end what he feels is an attempt by local election officials to keep students from voting in elections.
Significant historical Pennsylvania newspapers