It’S Election Central Ewu Students To Help Ap Gather Election Results From West
Phones will ring off the hook at Eastern Washington University on election night.
As the polls close in 10 Western states, including Idaho and Washington, results of 1,104 races will be called in to Eastern students compiling numbers for The Associated Press.
So when the results come in Tuesday evening and early Wednesday, Eastern students may be among the first to officially know who’s the next president.
“It’s pretty exciting,” said junior Timmian Emler, one of 140 students involved. “This is a once-in-a-lifetime experience.”
Instead of tabulating numbers at the various AP bureaus as it has done in past elections, AP centralized its operations by opening a Western Election Center housed in the multipurpose room of Eastern’s Pence Union Building.
On Saturday morning, AP staffers taught students how to input the data, as well as test the network of telephones and computers.
Earlier in the week, the same technology team that organized AP’s coverage of the 2000 Summer Olympics in Australia and both the Republican and Democratic national conventions came to Eastern to set up more than 100 computer stations.
That’s all in preparation for Tuesday - when students will stay up all night answering about 12,000 calls, checking Internet sites and inputting election results from counties throughout the West.
Depending on the state they’re assigned, each student will get results for a number of races, including the presidency, Congress and statewide propositions.
So a student assigned to Washington will get the numbers on Spokane’s fluoride initiative, while someone in charge of Wyoming’s results will know what happens to a state constitutional amendment that would allow nonregistered voters to become militia members.
The results will then be sent to AP’s media members and show up on television screens, Web sites and newspapers nationwide. In the United States alone, the AP serves about 5,000 radio and television stations, along with 1,700 newspapers.
AP took a regional approach to this year’s election because gathering the data has become significantly more complex, said Ann Joyce, West Coast election coordinator for the AP.
Space was becoming an issue in many bureaus, so it seemed logical, she said, to “take it out of the bureaus so the reporters can concentrate on covering news instead of counting votes.”
Joyce, who’s based in Spokane, searched everywhere for a Western Election Center home. She encountered problems because some wouldn’t rent a facility on such a short-term basis.
She inquired about Eastern in June, and “Eastern jumped,” she said.
“The university has been absolutely wonderful to work with.”
Except for the 10 states - Washington, Oregon, California, Nevada, Utah, Idaho, Arizona, Colorado, Wyoming and Hawaii - AP bureaus in the rest of the country will compile numbers the old way.
“It’s a major undertaking,” said Joyce, who started working on the Election Center in March. “I feel like an accountant during tax season.”
She has hired close to 600 people in the 10 states. Most are working at various precincts to call in the results to Eastern.
EWU has been recruiting students to work for $7.50 an hour, including training time.
While some students are journalism or political science majors interested in the elections, others just want to get involved in the process or think it’s a fun way to spend election night.
“I hope they really get connected with the political process,” said Steve Blewett, director of Eastern’s journalism program. “Too few students understand how our political system really works.”
Blewett hopes students will get a sense of how important the political process is.
“It’s great to be a part of this,” said Shion Creer, a public relations major. “It’s good to get a general knowledge of how the election works.”
For Misty Althauser, a junior journalism major, it’s a great way to make contacts at the AP. Besides that, she said, “it’ll be really cool to know what will happen before everybody else.”