'
TUESDAY
November 28, 2000
Volume 107 ~ Issue 66
12 pages
A’s office looks into missing voter cards
lizabeth Raines
'attalion
...jKpjihe Brazos County District Attorney’s of-
ceis interested in the case of missing voter
^ration cards submitted to Brazos Coun-
*JTVoter Registrar and Tax Assessor-Col lec-
)rluddy Winn by the College Republicans,
^ffravis Jones, a sophomore general stud-
dKispiajor, said he went to Brazos County Dis-
ict Attorney Bill Turner’s office after he
^ out the voter registration cards that he
nd his friend had filled out with the College
■ublicans were lost.
fy®|iones said his friend’s card was lost and
f 'fe s friend’s name was taken off the vot
er registration list in his hometown. A name
is taken off the voter registration list when
the voter registrar from another county re
moves it because a person can be registered
in only one county.
“After I heard about this, I began to ques
tion the validity of Buddy Winn’s claims that
he had not received our voter registration
cards,” Jones said. “The application had to go
through his office, because the only way a
name can be removed from a voter registra
tion list is through another voter registrar.”
Jones said Turner was interested in the case
and assigned investigator Steve Mills with the
district attorney’s office to work on it.
Turner would neither deny nor confirm
whether there is an investigation about the
missing voter registration cards.
Jones said he registered to vote for the na
tional election on Sept. 18 when volunteer
deputy registrars from the College Republi
cans came to the Callaway House to register
A&M students.
Jones and 1,500 A&M students filled out
voter application cards with the College Re
publicans and received receipts from the
deputy registrars. When the time came to
vote, Jones said, he was not registered to vote
in the Brazos County area and his application
could not be found.
Jones said he approached Jack Long, pres
ident of the College Republicans, about the
matter. Long said Winn had lost the voter reg
istration cards.
Jones said he was frustrated because no
one told him what happened to his applica
tion, so he approached the district attorney.
Long and Winn disagree about what hap
pened to the voter application cards. Long
said too many problems have come from this
situation for it to be ignored as a simple mis
placement of voter registration cards.
Besides students being unable to vote be
cause their cards were missing, many of the
registered students received voter cards from
Winn’s office, but the cards were not valid
until Nov. 8, the day after the election.
“I am a member of College Republicans
and was a volunteer deputy registrar for this
past election,” said Jessica Fontenot, a se
nior speech communication major. “I
signed up quite a few people, including my
self, on Oct. 2. You only have five days to
turn applications in to the voter registrar’s
office, so I know the cards were there be
fore the Oct. 10 date.
“However, when I and some of my friends
received our voter cards, it said we could not
begin voting until Nov. 8, one day after the
See Registration on Page 2.
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Travis Endsley, a junior industrial distribution major, bangs
on the bongos while Ryan Demmer, a junior recreation,
park and tourism sciences major, plays the guitar outside of
STUART VILLANUEVA/The Battalion
the Memorial Student Center Monday. They were partici
pating in "Play Anything, Say Anything," sponsored by
MSC Town Hall.
Gore pleads case
before America
Bush builds Cabinet in private
(AP) — A1 Gore defended his un
precedented reach to the courts Mon
day, declaring “Let the people have
their say” by counting every ballot in
Florida’s make-or-break presidential
election. George W. Bush plunged into
the work of building a new govern
ment even as scattered rank-and-file
Democrats warned that Gore’s time
may be running out.
A day after Bush summoned TV
cameras to press for Gore’s concession,
the vice president laid out his case for
letting courts settle the nation’s long-
counbelection. “This is America,” he
said with a forced chuckle. “When votes
are cast, we count them. We don’t arbi
trarily set them aside because it’s too
difficult to count them.”
The prime-time televised address
was perhaps Gore’s last, best chance to
explain why the closest presidential
election in 124 years didn’t end Sun
day night when Florida’s top elections
officer, a GOP partisan,
certified Bush the win- The continuing election
ner by 537 votes out of The agonizingly close election stretched into its 20th day Monday, with Democrat
Al Gore contesting the results in Florida and Republican George W. Bush planning
for a transition to the White House. Here is a roundup of recent developments
in the Florida presidential election recount.
U.S. Supreme Court is set to hear GOP
argument against recounts.
The stakes could hardly be higher.'
“If the people do not in the end'
choose me, so be it,” Gore said stand-'
ing at a presidential-style lectern be
fore a dozen American flags in the vice
presidential residence. “The outcome
will have been fair, and the people will
have spoken.”
“If they choose me, so be it. I would
then commit to bringing this country to
gether. But, whatever the outcome, let
the people have their say, and let us lis
ten,” Gore said, hours after Democratic
leaders and President Clinton queued up
to show their support.
With the agonizingly close election
stretching into its fourth week, neither
side appeared ready to give way in a
fierce struggle that has entangled the ju
diciary in the business of presidential
politics, threatening to spill past the Dec.
12 deadline for selecting state electors.
Ill Scholars
research
paternal
influence
tv Courtney S i iizii.
he Battalion
As the relationships in families
hange. scholars have begun to rc-
earch the effects on the children in-
olved. One Texas A&M research
earn has recently concluded that a
ood relationship between a father
md his daughter leads to her making
icalthy choices as an adult.
The team conducted a study con-
erning the absence of a father or fa
lter figure and the effects experi-
'ttced by the daughter.
Dr. Danny Ballard, a health pro-
essor at A&M. led the research
earn in conducting a study titled
'The Father/Daughter Relationship
ind Us Impact on Selected Intimate
Jntcome of Adult Females.”
Dr. Man in Genuchi. a professor
>t health and kinesiology at Kins-
wood College, had noticed that the
relationships between his male ae-
.jiiaintances and their daughters
closely affected the intimate rela
tionships the daughters had as
adults. He approached Ballard with
the concept, and they researched, di
rected and w rote the study together.
1 he research team s mission was
to see how the relationship between
the lather and daughter affected her
ability to form stable and substantial
long-term relationships with mem
bers of the opposite sex. The team
See Daughters on Page 2.
A&M thanks UT with
money for scholarships
AUSTIN (AP) — Just more than a year ago,
University of Texas-Austin (UT) students put their
football rivalry with Texas A&M on hold to honor
victims of the Bonfire collapse.
On Monday, that act of kindness was rewarded
by A&M in the form of a $50,000 endowment for
scholarships at UT.
The “1999 Bonfire Unity Endowed Presidential
Scholarship” will be available to any UT under
graduate student who is at least a sophomore and
has passing grades. Recipients also must be in
volved in student activities and display “a clear
commitment to the ideals displayed by the Univer
sity of Texas during Texas A&M’s Bonfire tragedy,”
said Jim Kunetka, director of the office of the vice
president for resource development at UT.
Twelve students were killed Nov. 18, 1999,
when the Bonfire they were building collapsed,
sparking an outpouring of support from UT. Stu
dents gave blood, collected money and drove to
College Station to comfort grieving Aggies.
“Last year’s tragedy at Texas A&M has been
shared by all Texans,” said Larry Faulkner, presi
dent of UT.
“We are honored to have this scholarship placed
at the University of Texas at Austin. It is our deep
est hope that the memory of those who lost their
lives in 1999 will live forever in future generations
of students who merit Bonfire Unity Scholarships,”
Faulkner said.
A&M System Regent Robert Allen put up
$25,000 of his own money to fund half of the
scholarship. The other half will be funded by
A&M.
The money will be placed in a permanent en
dowment, and UT will use the interest to fund an
nual scholarships likely beginning next fall,
Kunetka said.
“We thought an appropriate manner to demon
strate our appreciation would be to endow this
See Bonfire on Page 2.
6 million cast.
Gore’s support was
falling as he went on
the air.
An overnight poll
conducted before the
address by CNN/USA
Today/Gallup found
that 56 percent of Amer
icans said Gore should
concede the election
compared to 46 percent
who said that last week.
An ABC-Washington
Post survey found simi
lar results.
“I guess Bush does
have a legitimate right
to the presidency, but if
I was in Gore’s place,
I’d probably be doing
the same thing he is,”
said Rick Prowell, 39,
an electric lineman in
Little Rock, Ark.
Gore protested the
results in a Florida state
court earlier Monday,
becoming the first can
didate in U.S. history to
contest a presidential
election before the judi
ciary. His lawyers asked
for a quick hearing, but
may not get one before
the end of the week.
Courts
Overseas ballots
‘Butterfly ballot’
Absentee ballot
applications
Minority voters
Hand-counted
ballots
Counting
Statewide
Palm Beach
County
Gore, seeking to overturn Florida’s certification of Bush
as the winner of the state's decisive 25 electoral votes,
challenged the results from Palm Beach, Miami-Dade
and Nassau counties in state court Monday. His court
filing said the certification totals “include illegal votes
and do not include legal votes that were improperly
rejected. The number of such votes is more than sufficient
to place in doubt, indeed to change the result of the
election.”
The Bush campaign filed state lawsuits late Sunday in
Hillsborough, Okaloosa, Orange, Pasco and Polk
counties, charging that their canvassing boards
improperly rejected several overseas absentee ballots,
including those that were not dated or postmarked. The
lawsuits seek to force the counties to count the overseas
ballots.
A lawsuit over Palm Beach County’s “butterfly ballot”
was being sent to the state Supreme Court on Monday.
Some Democrats complained the ballot was so confusing
that they mistakenly cast votes for Pat Buchanan instead
of Gore. They are seeking a new election in the county.
Both sides agreed Monday to move a Democratic lawsuit
accusing Republicans of tampering with 4,700 absentee
ballot applications in Seminole County, near Orlando,
to circuit court in Tallahassee. '
The Rev. Al Sharpton filed a federal lawsuit in Miami
against Secretary of State Katherine Harris, Florida’s
board of elections and Bush, saying the state certification
before Miami-Dade County could complete a manual
recount of ballots disenfranchised minority voters.
The U.S. Supreme Court will hear a Bush appeal Friday
seeking to bar hand-counted ballots from being added
to the final tally.
Harris certified the state’s election results Sunday,
declaring Bush the winner. She accepted new vote
totals from 16 counties and rejected Palm Beach
County’s partial results. Bush leads Gore by 537 votes
in the certified totals.
As many as 1,000 ballots did not get reviewed before
a deadline arrived and county officials turned in recount
results showing Gore with a gain of 180 votes. The
county finished its count anyway. Gore’s court brief said
the entire manual count would have added 215 votes
for him.
And on Friday, the Source: Compiled from AP wire reports
TxDOT closes rest area to reduce car accidents
By Tamra Russell
cldosoj
The Battalion
A picnic area on Highway 6, a half-mile
south of Millican, was closed Thursday by
the Texas Department of Transportation (Tx
DOT) in an effort to reduce accidents in the
surrounding area.
The picnic area is located on the west side
of Hwy. 6 half a mile south of FM 159.
TxDOT spokesman Bob Colwell said
there have not been many accidents in the
area but the area was closed to see if acci
dents decrease.
“We closed it just to see if we could
help alleviate some of the accidents that
have been happening in that area,”
Colwell said.
Colwell said he did not know how many
accidents have been reported since the pic
nic area was closed. No fatal wrecks have
been reported in that area, and no date has
been set to reopen it.
The department also plans to combine
two lanes that turn onto Westward Ho
and Paradise Way streets into one turn
lane. The two turning lanes are 3/4 mile
apart.
The combining of the turn lanes is
scheduled to begin in the summer of
2001.
Colwell said TxDOT is trying to alle
viate accidents caused when drivers turn
left from the turn lanes onto side roads.
Twenty-two accidents were recorded
from January to August on the seven-mile
stretch of highway between College Sta
tion and Navasota. Four people died in
those accidents.
ANDY HANCOCK/The Battalion
The Texas Department of Transportation closed the rest area south of Millican to try to re
duce car accidents in the area.