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Photo by Erica Nesbitt, '09 |
On Election Day this November, Associate Professor of Communication Studies Jim McPherson and roughly 30 Whitworth students helped spread the results of the U.S. presidential race to
the world.
McPherson and the students worked at the Associated Press' Spokane Data Center, in downtown Spokane, where they helped collect election results. The students took calls from AP reporters stationed in 11 states across the country, who phoned in results they obtained from local election officials. The students relayed that information to AP staff members at the center, who entered the data into the AP's computer systems. The systems tabulated the data, then automatically distributed the information via satellite and the Internet to newspapers, broadcasters and others around the globe. The states for which the Spokane Data Center covered election results included Alaska, Arizona, California, Idaho, Nevada, New Mexico, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia, Washington and West Virginia.
The AP has operated both the Spokane Data Center and an election center at Eastern Washington University, in Cheney, since 2000. Whitworth is in heady company, as AP's other two Election Day centers are located in New York City. This year, the four centers reported the results of more than 6,000 races nationwide, including those for governorships, congressional seats, state legislators' positions, judgeships and a variety of propositions.
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