Today Friday Saturday
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IN BRIEF
Six GIs die in Iraq;
Allawi warns Fallujah
BAGHDAD, Iraq — A suicide at
tack and roadside bombings killed
six American soldiers, and Iraq’s
prime minister warned residents of
insurgent bastion Fallujah on
Wednesday to hand over terrorist
Abu Musab al-Zarqawi or face mili
tary action. Al-Zarqawi’s Tawhid
and Jihad group has claimed respon
sibility for beheading several foreign
hostages and for car bombings
throughout the country, and a video
tape posted Wednesday on an Islam
ic Web site showed militants linked
to al-Zarqawi beheading two Iraqis
accused of being intelligence
officers.
— The Associated Press
S
'Ti
M.
Local: Environment left
out of presidential debates
Continued from page 1
“Environmental issues haven’t
come up at all tonight, and that’s a
really big thing,” he said.
Freshman Laura Hercher said Ker
ry presented more information,
while Bush sometimes diverged from
the questions.
“I thought that both candidates
presented their views well,” Hercher
said.
She added that she disagreed with
Bush’s comments about the No
Child Left Behind Act, which he said
has improved education.
“I don’t like the No Child Left Be
hind Act and I’ve seen the effect of it
on my school district back home,”
she said.
She added that she wished the
candidates had talked more
about abortion.
parkerhowell@ daily emerald, com
020433
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Canvassing practices under scrutiny
Voter registration groups may have been pushed by
Republican affiliates to destroy cards from Democrats
BY JULIA SILVERMAN
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
PORTLAND — Oregon officials
have opened an investigation into al
leged improper voter registration
practices, Secretary of State Bill Brad
bury said Wednesday.
The investigation comes one day
after the deadline to register to vote,
in a year when Oregon voter num
bers are expected to be up substan
tially from the 2000 presidential
election.
And it comes on the heels of a tele
vision report in which a paid-per-reg
istration canvasser said he had been
instructed only to accept registra
tions from Republicans, and that he
“might” destroy those from
Democrats.
It was not immediately clear
which group that canvasser was
employed by.
Bradbury wouldn’t give details
on the other allegations, but said
complaints have also come from out
side the Portland metro area.
In Roseburg, Douglas County
Clerk Barbara Nielsen said she had
received a complaint from voters
who said canvassers working for a
Chandler, Ariz.-based consulting
firm called Sproul & Associates had
tried to push them into registering as
Republicans, saying otherwise the
canvassers wouldn’t get paid for
their efforts.
Additionally, Nielsen said she had
gotten calls from voters who refused
to give their names, but said that
canvassers from the same group had
implied that their cards wouldn’t
be turned in if they registered
as Democrats.
Sproul & Associates is run by
Nathan Sproul, a former head of the
Republican Party in Arizona who has
subcontracted with the Republican
National Committee to do voter
outreach efforts.
Sproul told an AP reporter in Las
Vegas that “we registered anyone
who wanted to register.”
A spokesman for the Republican
National Committee issued a state
ment Wednesday that said its party
has “a zero-tolerance policy for any
thing that smacks of impropriety in
registering voters.”
It is not yet clear whether any pos
sible voter fraud in Oregon might be
tied to similar allegations of Sproul &
Associates voter fraud in Nevada.
In Nevada, also considered a bat
tleground state by both Democrats
and Republicans, a former employee
of a Sproul & Associates group called
Voter Outreach of America told re
porters on Wednesday that he had
seen his boss shred eight to 10 De
mocratic registration forms.
Sproul denied any shredding
occurred.
Bradbury said the source of any
problems may be linked to groups
that pay canvassers per registration.
Other stories of unorthodox voter
registrations have also surfaced
throughout the state.
In Eugene, several University of
Oregon students were approached by
canvassers circulating a petition to
crack down on child molesters and
told they must register as Republi
cans in order for their signatures
to “count.”
“They told me that by registering
as a Republican, 1 would be helping
people fight child molesters," said
Elizabeth Thygeson, 19, who had al
ready registered as a Democrat. “1
didn’t appreciate that. It wasn’t ex
actly the truth.”
This isn’t the first time that Sproul
& Associates have surfaced in Ore
gon. Last month in Medford, a librar
ian was approached by a group
claiming to be affiliated with the pro
gressive, nonpartisan America Votes
organization, with a request to set up
registration booths in the library.
When librarian Megan O’Flaherty
probed into the group, she found
that instead, they were part of Sproul
& Associates, and had nothing to do
with America Votes.
National: Taxes a 'flash point' for candidates
Continued from page 1
— the two rivals standing behind
identical lecterns set precisely 10 feet
apart. Bush was on better behavior,
though, and there was no grimacing
and scowling this time when it was
Kerry’s turn to speak.
The encounter was also a policy
wonk’s dream — a blizzard of facts
and figures, references to “budget
caps” and other terms meaningful
only to Washington insiders.
It also turned into a tug of war of
sorts over Sen. John McCain of Ari
zona, the Republican maverick who is
Kerry’s Senate friend but Bush’s cam
paign supporter. Kerry twice invoked
his name during the debate, and the
second time Bush pounced.
“John McCain is for me for presi
dent,” he said, because of his position
on Iraq. Kerry, he said, offers a policy
of “retreat and defeat.”
Taxes were a particular flash point
between the president and
his challenger.
Questioned by moderator Bob Schi
effer of CBS, Kerry said he would fol
low through on his plan to roll back
tax cuts for Americans who earn more
than $200,000 a year while preserving
the reductions that have gone to lower
and middle income wage earners.
Under Bush, he said, the tax burden
of the wealthy has gone down and
that of the middle class has gone up.
But Bush said Kerry would never stick
to his promise and his election would
mean higher taxes for all.
Bush said that in more than 20
years in the Senate, Kerry had voted
97 times to raise taxes and twice as of
ten against cutting them.
“Anybody can play with those
votes, everybody knows that,” Kerry
retorted to Bush.
“Senator, no one’s playing with
your votes,” the president said.
Bush made a similar point when
the debate turned to health care.
While Kerry said he had a plan to help
expand health coverage for those who
lack it, Bush said, “plan is not a litany
of complaints. And a plan is not to lay
out programs you can’t pay for.”
The president said Kerry’s proposal
would cost the government $7,700 per
family. “If every family in America
signed up, it would cost the federal
government $5 trillion over 10 years,”
he said. “It’s an empty promise. It’s
called bait-and-switch.”
The two men disagreed over abor
tion, Kerry saying the choice should
be “between a woman, God and
her doctor. ”
The president said he wants to pro
mote a “culture of life,” and said Kerry
voted “out of the mainstream” when
he opposed legislation to ban so-called
partial birth abortions.
Asked directly whether he supports
overturning the 1973 Supreme Court
ruling that gave women the right to
abortion, Bush sidestepped. “What
you’re asking me is will I have a lit
mus test for my judges, and the an
swer is no,” the president said.
The president dodged a bit, too,
when the issue of a minimum wage
increase came up.
Kerry said emphatically he favors
one, and said that Republicans in con
trol of Congress had repeatedly
blocked Democratic attempts to
pass legislation.
Bush said he supported Mitch
McConnell’s bill to raise the minimum
wage, without explanation. Mc
Connell is a Republican senator from
Kentucky. As a candidate four years
ago, Bush said he favored raising
a minimum wage so long as
individual states were permitted
to exclude workers within
their borders.
Bush and Kerry agreed on one
point, stating that marriage should be
preserved for heterosexual couples.
But they gave different answers when
asked about whether homosexuality
was a choice.
“1 don’t know,” said the president.
Kerry referred to Vice President
Dick Cheney’s gay daughter, and said
it was not a choice. “We’re all God’s
children,” he said.
Kerry said that the recent expiration
of a ban on certain semiautomatic
weapons was a “failure of
presidential leadership” and that be
cause of it, terrorists can purchase
weapons at gun shows in the
United States.
Bush said there weren’t enough
votes in Congress to extend the ban.
But Kerry said if he were told to by
Tom DeLay, he’d insist on a fight to
win the necessary support. DeLay, R
Texas, is the House majority leader
and an opponent of gun control.
Asked about the Catholic bishops
who have advised parishioners it
would be a sin to vote for a candidate
who supports abortion rights, Kerry
evoked the name of John F. Kennedy,
another Massachusetts senator and
the first Catholic elected president.
He quoted Kennedy’s famous 1960
campaign statement in which he said
he wasn’t running to become a
Catholic president, but the first presi
dent who happens to be a Catholic.
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