The search for uncommitted debate questioners

By Douglas Kiker, Associated Press, 10/16/00

WASHINGTON -- The questioners at Tuesday's presidential debate will be St. Louis-area voters who say they're willing to support either Al Gore or George W. Bush -- though they might be leaning toward one or the other.

The Gallup polling organization, assigned by the Commission on Presidential Debates to recruit questioners for the town-hall style debate, started with a random sample of all registered voters in the metropolitan statistical area, and then screened out all but "uncommitted voters," said Frank Newport, Gallup's executive editor.

Very few voters are truly uncommitted, Newport said. So those invited to participate "may lean one way or the other, but they had indicate there is a chance they would vote for the other individual." If someone was leaning toward a third-party candidate, there had to be a chance they would vote for Bush or Gore.

As for the questions people might ask or the issues that might be raised, there was "absolutely no screening based on questions or issues" in selecting the group, Gallup said.

Commission spokesman George Kroloff said of the potential questioners: "We have to look at them as being a sequestered jury."

The list will be trimmed to about 100 by debate time out of the 600 or so seats available. The remaining seats are being divided among the parties and Washington University, where the debate is taking place.

Gallup also worked with the commission to create the audience for the 1992 town hall debate in San Diego and the 1996 town hall in Richmond, Va.