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From: horton@reed.UUCP (Nike Horton)
Newsgroups: comp.misc
Subject: Congress considering changes to Daylight Savings
Message-ID: <7708@reed.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 11-Nov-87 18:28:45 EST
Article-I.D.: reed.7708
Posted: Wed Nov 11 18:28:45 1987
Date-Received: Sat, 14-Nov-87 05:28:25 EST
Reply-To: horton@reed.UUCP (Nike Horton)
Distribution: na
Organization: Reed College, Portland OR
Lines: 35

An article in today's Oregonian entitled "HOUSE OKs POLL-CLOSING TIME"
might be of interest to vendors concerned about keeping daylight savings
time in synch.  The background of the bill concerns the disparity in
poll closing times during presidential elections, which caused problems in
1980, when the news media predicted a winner before the polls had closed
on the west coast.  This may or may not have caused people not to vote,
seeing that their vote had no effect since the result was already known.
Unfortunately, fixing the problem is not easy.  Muzzling the press is quite
rightfully looked down upon by the ACLU and others.  Keeping the polls open
late on the east coast is expensive, and closing them early on the west
isn't fair to people who have to work.  So those clever legislators of
ours came up with a new twist:

	(reprinted from the Portland Oregonian, November 11, 1987, by
	David Whitney)

	... The legislation would set a 9pm Eastern Standard Time closing for
	polls across the country. 

	Polls in the Central Time Zone would close at 8pm, and in the Mountain
	Time Zone at 7pm.  

	Because a 6pm poll closing along the West Coast was considered too
	early to accomodate after-work voting, the bill would EXTEND DAYLIGHT
	SAVINGS TIME TWO WEEKS DURING PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION YEARS IN THE 
	PACIFIC TIME ZONE, meaning polls there would close at 7pm.

While this certainly hasn't become law (the Senate has not acted upon it 
yet) it might test the tolerance of current time zone configurations to 
handle different rules for different years.

Nike
-- 
Nicholas/Nike Horton       former system manager Aiken Computation Lab, Harvard
horton@reed.uucp 	   horton@harvard.harvard.edu