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Show HERALD DAILY AAS Sunday, September 12,2004 .? Early votes transform ele ctio ns: I Europe sets deadline for Iran nuclear prograi George Jahn THE ASSOCIATED PRESS BERLIN Europe's major powers have agreed to set a November (leadline on Iran to meet demands meant to resolve concerns that it is secretly trying to make nuclear weapons, in a confidential doc-- , ument made available Saturday to The Associated Press. The draft resolution was prepared by France, Germany and Britain for Monday's start of a key meeting of the International Atomic Energy Agency, the U.N. nuclear watchdog. r The draft contains a "trigger mechanism," warning of possi- ble "further steps" which diplomats defined as shorthand for referral of Iran's case to the U.N. Security Council The draft is likely to undergo changes before the three nations submit it at the board meeting of the IAEA. And it still has to be approved by two thirds of the 35 board members. But it is significant because it puts the three European coun tries the closest they have formally been to the United Sites on what to do about Iran and v activities that Washington insists show Tehran is trying build the nuclear bomb. Up to now, the European countries have resisted U.S. attempts to have Iran hauled before the Security Council or even hint on a date for such possible action. Iran says its nuclear program is solely for energy production. The draft says Iran must suspend all activities related to nuclear enrichment including manufacturing of centrifuges and must meet all requirements posed by the IAEA in its probe into Iran's nuclear activities before IAEA chief ElBaradei reports to the board again in November. On the basis of ElBaradei's report, the board will "probably1' make a "definite determination on whether or not further steps are required," the draft said. . "This is a trigger that can be pulled if the November board deems it necessary," said Mo-ham- 1 ' one diplomat. While the last board meeting . in June censured Iran far past cover-up- s and warned it has little time left to disprove it has a nuclear weapons program, it didnt impose a deadline or even indirectly threaten sanctions. But since then, Iran's earher commitments to stop some uranium enrichment and related acalienattivities have eroded ing the three European nations. Enriched uranium can be used to generate electricity or make nuclear weapons. Iran last year agreed to freeze enrichment programs, but it has since resumed testing, assembling and making centrifuges, a key component of such activities. Last week, it confirmed an IAEA report that it planned to convert more than 40 tons of raw uranium into uranium hexafhioride, the gas put into centrifuges for enrichment. Iran's original suspension came in a deal with ledge E ritain, Germany and France but fell short of European demands that Tehran scrap enrichment. ., . Iran is not obliged to halt enrichment under the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, but Tehran has been under interna- tional pressure for more than a year to fully renounce enrichment to counterbalance suspi-- . dons generated by nearly two decades of clandestine nuclear activities that came to light only two years ago. On Tuesday, it offered to reimpose a partial freeze on some of those activities, in an apparent move to deflect growing international exasperation ahead of Monday's meeting. But diplomats, speaking on condition of anonymity, told the AP they had not heard of a concrete agreement with the IAEA on that jssue by Saturday. The text of the draft had no reference to any commitment by Tehran to reimpose its enrichment freeze. The draft has some positive language. It notes "the general positive . Iranian cooperation" with the IAEA, while asserting that "the process of providing information needs, in certain instances, to be accelerated.1' But it notes "with serious . concern . that Iran has not C heeded repeated calls from the board to suspend all enrich- ment related and reprocessing Robert Tanner, -- . activities." It "deeply regrets that Iran's i partial freeze of enrichment ; and related programs falls "significantly short'' of what the IAEA wants "and also that Iran has since reversed some of those decisions." The draft expresses concern about Iran's plans to convert jts raw uranium into hexafhioride. And it "urges Iran to immediately and verif iably to susacpend all enrichment-relatetivities, notably the manufac-tur- e of centrifuge components, the assembly and testing of centrifuges, and the production of feed material" It asks ElBaradei to present a comprehensive review of his two-yea-r investigation into Iran's nuclear programs, a record of Tehran's cooperation and a judgment on Iran's willingness to fully suspend "all enrichment related and reprocessing activities." - f- THE ASSOCIATED tf PRESS - - In an electkwiyear when just '., a few thousand votes in a few . . states could decide the winner, the growing number of voters who cast ballots weeks before Election Day 1s transforming. 2 the landscape f cr pofitkat canv ' paigns..state&Jiow offer, Thirty-tw- o some form of early yotingivr -ing campaigns a chance to lock ' down hundreds of thousands of ballots tong before Nov. 2, and : focus more intensely on uncle-- u cided voters in the final days before polls close. Election officials say early voting is convenient but others J" say the trend is misguided ' depriving voters of critically im-port ant information late in the ,4 campaign cycle, and undermin- ing the nation of one of its few . collective, democratic experi- 't ences. r 2 "Early voting has become very critical" said Clint Reed, who coordinates the Republican ' Party's campaign in Arkansas, , one of the states that has been targeted as a battleground. "Politics has become so much more of a scientific numbers game. Candidates from top to bottom calculate very specific vote goals, and how to achieve them. Every campaign, going into Election Day, wants to know how many votes they need. And early voting can get you there," he said. i Basically a relaxed version of absentee voting and variously ' called convenience voting, un-; conditional voting, or absentee voting, it drops that people must be . . ill or to vote early. , Many states allow voters to vote in person, and even set up polling places. Others only accept mailed votes. The trend has been steadily increasing: Somewhere between 15 percent and 20 per- ; cent of all voters nationwide v cast their ballots early, and that number is expected to rise to 25 percent this year, accord- - . ing to Curtis Gans at the Committee for the Study of the American Electorate. Arkansas, Florida, Missouri, i New Mexico, North Carolina and North Dakota all expanded or began early voting since the i last presidential election. "We're in 2004, and both parents are working. Kids are in school, with 500 activities a week. People's lives are such j that they're not able to come to a screeching halt and march , down to their local elementary school on Election Day," said ,; Meredith Imwalle with the National Association of Secre- - .7 taries of State. Imwalle said anecdotal evidence indicates early voting boosts turnout. Florida, for one, has begun a statewide advertising campaign encouraging people to vote, and to vote early. Gans, however, said data related to mail-i-n early voting "unequivocally" shows it worsens turnout, while information about walk-i- n early voting, is mixed and unconvincing. .7 "It's essentially a device for t i lazy, middle-- and upper-clas- s people who would likely vote ... .1 anyway," Gans said. "The prob- - r lem of voting in the United States is not procedural, but ,i rather motivational. ... People who want to fix the turnout problem are looking for a quick 7 fix, and they're doing some- thing, and it's probably wrong." Another observer argued that .j the turn to early voting is likely to further erode the sense of v citizenship throughout the country, and weaken people's v obligation to pay attention to j 4 the election and make a n thoughtful decision. "This is terrible," said Bruce Ackerman, a Yale University ' : law of professor and "Deliberation Day" a book that ;i argues for making Election Day ;i a holiday and carving out an- .0 other, separate daytwo weeks' 4 earlier for people to discuss and ;i debate the issues surrounding; an election. , "The fact of the matter is, there is a lot of discussion in the ' last four weeks before ,,' tion. A lot more. A good citizen u , should expose themself to this conversation when it occurs ' ;t and not opt out of it," he said. "We're going in the wrong way, on both soundbite demoo racy and the erosion of the only ritual we have left." e For the campaigns, what matters is how early voting can boost a victory. 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