This is a roundup of computer-assisted election stories from around the country on everything from campaign contributions to voting patterns.

"Looking into the deepest pockets"

By Rick Mendosa and Sarah Acosta Hispanic Business (October 1992) This computer-assisted story shows how Hispanic contributions to congressional and presidential candidates, national party funds and political action committees more than tripled over the past three presidential elections. Interestingly, a disproportionate amount of the $3.16 million Hispanics contributed in this election cycle as of March 31 is coming from Florida and is going to Republicans, according to the report. Mendosa and Acosta also isolated the largest Hispanic political giver. The National Library on Money & Politics, a Washington-based non-partisan, non-profit research organization, searched FEC records from 1979 to 1992 for 3,000 Hispanic surnames supplied by Hispanic Business and isolated 30,000 contributions. Mendoza and Acosta took these records, in comma delimited form, and analyzed them in dBASE by year, party, state type of contribution.

"Senate race ante up to $1 million"

By Dan Popkey The Idaho Statesman (Oct. 11, 1992) Reporter Dan Popkey used FEC data to see just how seriously Republican and U.S. Senate hopeful Dirk Kempthorne took his own campaign call to "take our government back from the politics as usual crowd." Popkey's analysis showed Kempthorne raised twice as much money from political action committees as his opponent. Using the same data, Popkey showed Kempthorne's financial support came from timber and mining interests while his opponent's came from labor unions and agriculture interests. The Statesman also documented how much of each candidate's support came from out-of-state. The reporting took three to five days, Popkey said. The Statesman got the FEC data from the National Library on Money & Politics and used Lotus spreadsheet to sort contributors by address, occupation and name.

"Bush holds big lead in corporate donations"

By Lance Williams San Francisco Examiner (Oct. 13, 1992) President Bush fell behind Democratic candidate Bill Clinton in California popularity polls in this year's presidential campaign, but the GOP was ahead of the Democrats almost three to one in state soft money donations, according to the Examiner.

Computer-assisted reporter Lance Williams looked at FEC records on state corporate contributions to four Democratic and four Republican committees from the beginning of the election cycle through June 1st to show how the GOP had raised $5.5 million in Californian "soft-money"-- beefy company donations exempt from election finance reform laws that are meant to lessen the influence of special interest money in presidential campaigns. Williams' analysis showed the GOP has received particularly large donations from energy firms worried about laws restricting oil drilling, agribusiness interests worried about losing federal subsidies and real estate interests that would profit from a Bush plan to free up wetlands for development. The Examiner also listed the three top donors in each of six sectors, from energy to entertainment. During this one-month, one-person project, Williams looked at more than 7,000 contributors and used dBASE to sort data according to interest group.

"Paying attention to political influences"

By Thomas Huang and Alex Marshall, with computer analysis by Tom Boyer The Virginian Pilot and the Ledger-Star (Oct. 18, 1992) A Virginian Pilot/Ledger Star survey of congressional records and a computer analysis of campaign contributions illustrated a political maxim that is easy to complain about but difficult to document: money buys influence. Computer-assisted reporter Tom Boyer used an FEC database supplied by the National Library on Money & Politics to show an alignment between PAC campaign contributions and the political positions of three congressional incumbents. Boyer also isolated each candidate's top five donors and the amounts, as well as the top 10 donors overall. Boyer recommends dealing with the Library instead of the FEC. "FEC tapes are expensive and cumbersome to work with, and to make sense of PAC contributions it's a huge help to have the detailed industry codes the National Library folks have added." The best way to keep up to speed with contribution data, Boyer says, is have National Library data plus a link to the FEC's on-line system. The best way to use PAC-donation data, Boyer suggests, is in routine congress coverage. "We've plowed campaign finance data into our day-to-day coverage of the Virginia General Assembly," he says. "Legislators hate it, and lobbyists hate it even more. Some lawmakers become timid about carrying a PAC's water if they know their vote will end up beside their contributions in the next day's paper."

"Bush slipped in suburbs"

By Ted Mellnik and Allen Norwood The Charlotte Observer (Nov. 11, 1992)

A post-election story by the Observer matched precinct results with 1990 census data to show how the swing away from George Bush in North Carolina was more pronounced in cities and suburbs.

Bush support in state urban and suburban areas dropped since 1988 by more than 15 percentage points, compared with a 13.6 point drop across rural areas, according to the study.

The Observer also used census data to analyze election returns for four groups of precincts, each group dominated by people with similar education, occupations and household income.

The study showed Bush lost support among upper-income voters, mostly executives and professionals, and that most of those votes went to Perot. The votes Bush lost among middle-class voters were more likely to go to Clinton.

For this precinct analysis story, the Observer started with block-group level figures on income and education, then used Atlas GIS to make precinct-level estimates and SPSSPC to search for data patterns and to create precinct groups. The paper used dBASE to relate demographic class with precinct vote results.

"The politics of reform"

By Patti Epler, with computer analysis by Jerry Uhrhammer The (Tacoma, Wash.) Morning News Tribune (Oct. 1992)

The News Tribune used computers to analyze the impact of a Washington state campaign financing initiative before the votes were cast.

Critics of Initiative-134, aimed at limiting the money going into political campaigns, said it was a political maneuver to boost the influence of business at the expense of labor interests. The criticism focused on a clause prohibiting the use of some union dues for political purposes.

The News Tribune's analysis of 1990 campaign records from the state Public Disclosure Commission bore out the critics' claims by showing that I-134 would have cost Democratic candidates $1.2 million dollars in labor backing. Overall, I-134 would have cost the Democrats $400,000 more than the Republicans in campaign contributions for that election cycle.