Some 2006 election questions and thoughts for reporters:

What about voting machines? There wasn’t any way to hold a real recount in the Virginia Senate election, where the Democrat won by three-tenths of a percentage point; there could only have been a check on whether election officials correctly added up the numbers the machines gave out. Would a paper trail help? Yes, but only if we can be sure that it’s valid, and not rigged – and there’s no guarantee of that, as far as I can tell. In Florida, a Republican U.S. House candidate was ahead by 373 votes, but it looks like more than 18,000 touch-screen votes weren’t recorded. What happens now? Are there do-overs in elections? Editors must treat this as a priority story. What have experts learned from this year’s elections?

Reagan-naming needed, fast. You can take a cab from the Ronald Reagan building in DC to Reagan National airport. But you can’t yet pay the driver with a Reagan $20 bill or a Reagan $50 bill. Time’s running out for the lame-duck Congress to fix that. Why not put the Reagan name on all currency and all federal government buildings, too?

Get a 2007 calendar, go to November, and write in: ‘On Nov. 9, 2006, a gallon of gas cost $2.05 (or whatever you paid).’ What’s the price today?’

How did the religious vote go and why? James Dobson says the Republicans betrayed religious voters and that’s why they lost Congress. According to a New York Times analysis, Democrats did better with Roman Catholics and mainline Protestants in places where Democratic candidates worked hard to get the religious vote. Other reports say there wasn’t much change at all in the evangelical vote. So what happened, and what’s next? This is obviously an important, ongoing story.

Pelosi says she’s going to drain the swamp, meaning, she says, she’s going to strive for honesty in Congress. Well, can we hear what she and her Senate counterpart, presumably Harry Reid of Nevada, have to say about draining the swamp of corporate influence? Or is that what she was referring to?

In a survey of Nieman fellows on this Web site last year, several urged the press to do better in reporting on the qualifications of candidates for high office. What about their integrity and other aspects of character? Positions on important issues? This is a tricky deal for newsrooms, a job not done well even at full staffing levels. But it’s extremely important. So here’s one suggestion: Let a political editor or clerk start gathering material now. Governor of Iowa Tom Vilsack just announced he’s running for President. John McCain is taking formal steps toward a campaign. Start a file on them, and on the other likely presidential candidates, and keep the files live and growing. That’ll give reporters a head start. And when the time comes, they can be working on these stories instead of the he-said, she-saids. (Got any ideas for election coverage you’d like to offer? We’d like to have them.)

Finally, think young people don’t care about politics? Early turnout figures seem to tell a different story. If they’re voting, maybe they’ll buy newspapers? It may be a case of “Give them the news and they’ll come.”