ASHINGTON - Military facilities would be available as polling places in federal, state, or local elections under legislation that passed the House yesterday. Representatives approved the measure 297-114, over the objections of the Defense Department, which said it could undermine the separation of the military from political activities. Representative Bill Thomas, Republican of California, the bill's sponsor, said the legislation was necessary because the Pentagon earlier this year issued a directive against the setting up of election booths on military facilities. He said that disrupts a tradition in which commanders in remote or rural areas had allowed voting on military facilities when it was in the best interest of the community. He said the bill only makes clear that allowing polls on military facilities is not illegal and the military would have the final say on whether an election poll would be permitted. (AP)
Polls call debate tossup or Bush win
WASHINGTON - George W. Bush and Al Gore were judged to be very close in their debate performances Wednesday night in two network polls, while Bush was judged to have performed better in two others. The two polls that judged Bush highest came from samples that already favored him by 10 points before the debate, although most national surveys have shown the race is very close. The two men's performances were favored about evenly in NBC News and CBS News instant polls, while Bush had the advantage in CNN-USA Today-Gallup and ABC News polls. Republican Bush was seen as the winner of the second debate by 46 percent to 30 percent in an ABC News snap poll. Bush was viewed as having done the better job, a slightly different question, 49 percent to 36 percent, in the CNN-USA Today-Gallup poll. NBC News used the same ''better job'' formulation and found 40 percent thought Bush did a better job to 37 percent for Gore. In a CBS News poll, 51 percent thought Bush won, while 48 percent thought Gore won. The error margins for the polls ranged from 4 to 5 percentage points. (AP)
Lieberman again says victim not kin
WASHINGTON - Vice presidential candidate Joseph Lieberman said yesterday he was not a relative of Hillel Lieberman, an American-born Jewish settler killed last weekend in Israel in the rising violence between Israelis and Palestinians. The victim's family had told The New York Times that he was a second cousin of the Democratic vice presidential candidate, that their grandfathers were brothers. But Lieberman, who was in Texas yesterday, said in a telephone interview with reporters, ''To the best of my knowledge, I am not (related).'' The Connecticut senator said he called the victim's family in New York on Monday and spoke with his father, Rabbi Sidney Zvulun Lieberman. ''I told him where my grandfather was from in Poland, and he said he was probably not the person that he had thought he was,'' Lieberman said. ''In any case, it's a tragedy and I extended my condolences.'' (AP)
Buchanan decries Vt. marriage law
WASHINGTON, Vt. - Patrick Buchanan yesterday went to the farm where the ''Take Back Vermont'' movement began and said Vermont was the scene of a ''major skirmish'' in a ''cultural war going on for the soul of this country.'' The main purpose of the Reform Party presidential nominee's visit was to speak out against Vermont's civil unions law, which gives most of the rights and benefits of marriage to same-sex couples. Buchanan said he was hoping opponents of the law, which was enacted earlier this year, would be swept into office in November. (AP)
