ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Thursday, October 31, 1996 TAG: 9610310006
SECTION: BUSINESS PAGE: B6 EDITION: METRO
COLUMN: Computer Bits
SOURCE: DWAYNE YANCEY STAFF WRITER
THE WORLD WIDE WEB will allow people to keep up with returns from the presidential election to school board races.
Come Tuesday, you have a couple of choices. You can sink back on the sofa and channel-surf between Rather, Jennings, Brokaw and Shaw (or HBO, MTV and ESPN, if you want to avoid the election returns altogether).
Or you can take control.
This election year, citizens with access to the World Wide Web won't have to wait for the returns - they can seek them out on their own.
Say you're sitting there watching the network talking heads when you get a sudden urge to find out how the congressional race in your Aunt Tilda's hometown in Kentucky turned out. No problem. The answer is a few mouse clicks away.
Or suppose you've always fancied yourself an amateur-class pundit, and you think you can call these races before the wire services and the network anchors can. Go right ahead. A Net surfer who know where to look will have access to everything they have - the exit polls, the actual returns, even expert commentary.
More than 30 Internet sites are offering real-time election returns this year, usually relying on results compiled by Voter News Service, a consortium of media outlets, including The Associated Press. In addition, nine states (although not Virginia) are posting results on line, on everything from the presidency down to local school boards.
Just how this will work remains more suspenseful than some of the races on the ballot. What may be the best-known political site on the web, PoliticsNow, is tripling its normal number of servers to accommodate the expected crush. Evans Witt, the site's executive editor, says he's expecting "tens of thousands" of hits.
His site - a partnership of ABC News, The Washington Post, Newsweek, the Los Angeles Times and the National Journal - promises to post information as soon as it arrives at ABC-TV. "We think we're the best real-time news source on the Web," he says.
Whether that's the case, you can judge for yourself.
With so many sites available, what might be most useful is a strategy. Here's some advice on how to figure out what's happening.
* PRESIDENT
This is the easy one, but it's also the big one. You can start by watching the Virginia returns. The Old Dominion has been a Republican lock in most elections since 1952, but Clinton has been leading in some polls here. If the Democrat carries Virginia, you may as well sign off now; it's all over. If Dole wins here, then the race is still on.
The best bellwether may be Florida, another Republican-leaning state, but one where Clinton has made a major push, mostly by charging that the GOP proposals to hold down Medicare costs would be unfriendly to seniors.
* THE SENATE.
This is where the fun begins if you're trying to track the returns on your own. Republicans are expected to maintain control, but that's by no means certain. The key is knowing which seats are the battlegrounds.
Start by looking at Georgia, where Democrat Sam Nunn is retiring and Democrat Max Cleland and Republican Guy Millner are vying to replace him. No Democrat has won an open Senate seat in the South since 1988, when Virginia's Charles Robb took office. Cleland has been leading in the polls, but Millner has come on strong. If he overtakes Cleland, the Democrats' chances dim considerably.
* HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
If you can figure out what's going on here, you qualify as both a Webmaster and a political junkie. Even the experts are not sure which party will wind up with control of the House; with 435 seats at stake, it takes a lot of number-crunching.
But a handful of races might tell the tale. The key ones to watch are in Southern districts where Democrats are retiring, and districts across the country where freshman Republicans are defending their seats.
The hottest Southern district actually features an incumbent, but Democratic freshman Mike Ward in Kentucky's 3rd District narrowly won in a three-way race two years ago and is considered vulnerable in a state where Clinton's move to regulate tobacco is not especially popular.
The biggest names on election night include:
POLITICSNOW
www.politicsnow.com
C-SPAN
www.c-span.org/campaign/campfram.htm
ROLL CALL
www.rollcall.com/election/election/html
NATIONAL PUBLIC RADIO
www.npr.org/hotnews/election96.html
CBS
www.cbsnews.com/campaign96
LENGTH: Medium: 97 lines KEYWORDS: POLITICSby CNB