The Birmingham age-herald. [volume] (Birmingham, Ala.) 1902-1950, 1916-10-29

| Associated Press bureaus. Thousands of
special forms have been prepared for the
| systematic conduct of the service, thou
| sands of typewriter sheets distributed,
| listing candidates and showing votes four
| years ago as a basis of comparison. spe-
cial correspondents appointed and special
wire facilities arranged for this particu-
! lar work
COUNTY MADE UNIT
| In the collection of returns. the county
is everywhere made the unit, and it is
the purpose of the system to hear def
nitely from every election district of
the more important states. In New York
alone these districts numb err 500. In Ill
| inois there are over 5000 and in other
states a proportionately large number Of
districts to be heard from. Taking New
York state as typical of the system that
will be followed in principle. it least, by
other states, the service there is worked
| out broadly as follows:
Having arranged for some competent
man to take charge of each county up
state and for cooperative effort with the
New York City News association for the
collection of the metropolitan returns,
the New York headquarters of the Assoc
| ciated Press is made the center of tab
ulation. The upstate county man is sta
toned at the most convenient center,
usually the county seSs, from which he
throws out his net for the gathering of
his local returns.
For the special work in hand, % extra
wires are strung into the Associated
Press offices in New York, giving direct
and exclusive connection with the prin-
cipal cities Before the operators IL
stacked a varied assortment of printed
forms, whose blank spaces await thu
figures that tell the story. There are
pink forms blue forms, buff green, vel.
low and white to make the various COM
! pilations of the vote for President, gov.
ernor, Senate, Congress and the two
houses of the state legislature.
In an adjining room there have been
assembled a staff of $50 men to serve as
tabulators. Previous to the election the
Associated Press has arranged with
some of the best banks in the city to
furnish expert accountants for this work
| They work in relays, the first crew re-
porting at the close of the polls at 5
o'clock compiling the figures until >
o'clock in the morning
Less than 10 minutes after the closing
of the polls, the work begins. The first
returns in New York are Invariably from
some of the upstate cities, where voting
machines are employed. There are, how
ever, some localities on Cape Cod and
down in Maine which for years have
prided themselves on being the first in
law permits the opening of the ballot
boxes as soon as it has been made GER
tain that the full vote of the place has
been polled, and the result is then made
known.
AVALANCHE OF FIGURES
1t is only by driblets that the first
figures come in, but once the avalanche
is started there is no let-up to the tick
of the telegraph saunders, and a swarm
of the colored blanks is kept flying from
the receiving operators to the tabulators.
The figures are first entered by the tabu-
lators and passed along to the designated
chief. who keeps 'Doomsday Book
showing the running total of the vote
throughout the night. Every 10 minutes
the business of tabulation is punctuated
by the issue of a bulletin on New York
state, which is rushed to the leased
wires of the Associated Press-and over
these main arteries and secondary ones,
some 1900 miles of them. some so diff
ferent circuits-the news circuates. keep
ing all of the $40 newspaper-membe OF
the association posted on how the coin-
try is going.
The form of these bulletins is known
to thousands who have seen them flashed
on the election screens
"5os election districts out of 500 in
WILSON; Hughes---."
So, district by district, these bulletins
grow until it looks so certain to some
of the experts that one paper or another
will concede somebody's election. But
the Associated Press comedies nothing.
1t must know.
for governor in New York, in 1900, its
system had a severe test. Coler ran up
La big vote in New York city, and the
heavy vote of Odell upstate was over
looked by many of the newspapers
which conceded Coler's election. The
Associated Press, in the midst of this
confusion, was led to wonder II its fig
ures were right. The general manager
had an abiding confidence in his men
and figures, but in the face of conces
sion that some of the papers were max
ing Coler's election, something must
be done to check the matter. He or
dered a recount. The system provided
for Just such an emergency. and this
Odell- Coler year is the only time it
has ever been called into play. All Of
the county returns, after being tabu-
lated, are hung on a large rack of
hooks classified by counties, where
they are Immediately available for re-
count. Off the hooks came these hum
dreds of kilograms. and in just 1o
minutes time the entire state vote was
|recounted. The head tabulator, forget
ting for the moment that he was in a
newspaper office instead of his bank,
exclaimed: Mr.. Stone, we check to a
penny" The recount tailed exactly
with the figures the Associated Press
had revously given out and the papers
which. independently of the Associated
Press figures, had conceded Coler's
election had eventually to admit their
error.
The accuracy of the Associated Press
figures has seldom since been ques-
toned. In connection with the recent
New York state primary, in the fight
between Calder and Bacon for the re-
publican nomination as candidate for
a seat in the United States Senate, the
majority given by the Associated Press
was only 10 votes at variance with the
official count In a Massachusetts state