Is Election Litigation Here to Stay?

Hosted by
The court-ordered delay of California-s recall election did not stand, but with 26 states still using the punch-card ballots that produced the fiasco in Florida three years ago, election officials all over the US are braced for more lawsuits to come. The Helping America Vote Act, HAVA, designed to prevent that from ever happening again haven-t been funded and, besides, new voting systems may not be much better than old ones. Are the recent challenges to California-s recall just the beginning? In this age of bitter partisanship and razor-thin electoral margins, will lawsuits become standard procedure in the electoral process? We speak with a Florida election supervisor, the lead counsel in a case that overturned Miami's 1997 mayoral election, and the leaders of nonpartisan election education and reform organizations. Making News: The Recall-s Home Stretch It-s now certain that California voters will decide on October 7 whether to recall Governor Gray Davis. The 135 challengers who want to replace him have just 13 days left to campaign. Tonight in Sacramento, the five candidates who have made the strongest showing in statewide polls will square off in the -super bowl- debate, the only one in which Arnold Schwarzenegger has agreed to take part. Mark Barabak is a political writer for the Los Angeles Times. Reporter-s Notebook: Cross-Border Trafficking of Humans in Era of Globalization In his speech yesterday to the United Nations, President Bush warned about the -special evil in the abuse and exploitation- of children, and he blamed human trafficking for the spread of AIDS and underwriting of organized crime and terrorism. Slavery is the subject of tomorrow night's episode of the PBS series Wide Angle. Stephen Segaller, executive producer of Dying to Leave, looks at the worldwide traffic in human beings.
The court-ordered delay of California-s recall election did not stand, but with 26 states still using the punch-card ballots that produced the fiasco in Florida three years ago, election officials all over the US are braced for more lawsuits to come. The Helping America Vote Act, HAVA, designed to prevent that from ever happening again haven-t been funded and, besides, new voting systems may not be much better than old ones. Are the recent challenges to California-s recall just the beginning? In this age of bitter partisanship and razor-thin electoral margins, will lawsuits become standard procedure in the electoral process? We speak with a Florida election supervisor, the lead counsel in a case that overturned Miami's 1997 mayoral election, and the leaders of nonpartisan election education and reform organizations.
  • Making News: The Recall-s Home Stretch
    It-s now certain that California voters will decide on October 7 whether to recall Governor Gray Davis. The 135 challengers who want to replace him have just 13 days left to campaign. Tonight in Sacramento, the five candidates who have made the strongest showing in statewide polls will square off in the -super bowl- debate, the only one in which Arnold Schwarzenegger has agreed to take part. Mark Barabak is a political writer for the Los Angeles Times.
  • Reporter-s Notebook: Cross-Border Trafficking of Humans in Era of Globalization
    In his speech yesterday to the United Nations, President Bush warned about the -special evil in the abuse and exploitation- of children, and he blamed human trafficking for the spread of AIDS and underwriting of organized crime and terrorism. Slavery is the subject of tomorrow night's episode of the PBS series Wide Angle. Stephen Segaller, executive producer of Dying to Leave, looks at the worldwide traffic in human beings.

California Recall Replacement Candidates' Debate

Barabak's article on debate

Wide Angle

Credits

Host:

Warren Olney