Nightline: Daily E-mail (12/14)
W A S H I N G T O N, Dec. 14 -- We are very, very sorry.
A software glitch on our end was the culprit. Some of you who sent responses to yesterday’s e-mail inadvertently replied to everyone on the distribution list—some 18,000 recipients! As soon as we realized what was happening, we shut down the server and several engineers worked through the night to identify and fix the problem.
We believe it is now solved, and again, we apologize to all of you for unwanted e-mail traffic. Finally, thanks to many of you who called to alert us to the problem. This e-mail service is something we are very serious about making a useful and valuable tool and the last thing we want is for it to be an annoyance. Please be assured we are on top of it, and while we can’t promise there will never be another technical snafu, be assured we will pour our resources into fixing problems immediately and avoiding them as much as possible.
NOW…BACK TO YOUR REGULARLY SCHEDULED E-MAIL:
After 37 days, the longest election night on record is finally over. With a new president-elect, we know there will be a lot of questions to explore. Who will be named to the Bush Cabinet? His White House staff? What will his legislative priorities be? How will the administration work with the new Congress, so deeply split along party lines? Frankly, we don’t know the answers to any of those important questions tonight. In the coming days and weeks, we’ll surely address them. But despite the intense urge to put the election behind us and move onto other news (there are some other stories in the world, actually!), we thought it best to take one last look at the election and the light it cast on how we vote.
What happened in Florida focused attention on the question of electoral reform as nothing else could have. What was once an arcane subject for political junkies has become a major policy issue. Just today we saw Gov. Jeb Bush say he would push for electoral reform, while on the other side of the aisle, the Democratic congressional leaders, Rep. Richard Gephardt and Sen. Tom Daschle, said they would make it a priority as well. Many Americans say they believe there is a significant problem of disenfranchisement due to the inadequate and antiquated voting systems we have in parts of the country.
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