User:Daniel Bush/Story preparation/Wikinews investigates Wikipedia usage by American state governments

Several American state governments have been editing articles on state politicians. Wikipedia is investigating edits coming from IP addresses owned by those state governments, through publicly available databases, and covering their content.

The state of Connecticut made an edit to the article on M. Jodi Rell, current governor of Connecticut, and the American Registry of Internet Numbers says it comes from the address of the Department of Information Technology. Some changes are subjective, such as changing her description as a "liberal Republican" to a "Moderate Republican," and changes from "She also supports a Democratic lawsuit against the Bush Administration in response to the No Child Left Behind Act," to "She also supports a lawsuit in response to the No Child Left Behind Act," the Department also removed a paragraph about support of revival of a Connecticut estate tax. The estate tax is charged on properties left by Connecticut's deceased only on estates worth $2 million or more, according to the CPA Journal, and representatives of estates affected have had to file returns since January 1, 2006 because of legislation signed by the governor on June 30, 2005.

The state of Arkansas's Department of Computer Services, again, according to ARIN, made an edit to the article on the current governor of Arkansas, Mike Huckabee, removing parts of the criticisms section about Wayne DuMond entirely, a convicted rapist that later committed murder in Minnesota when he was granted parole by the Arkansas Post Prison Transfer Board during Huckabee's term, according to the Kansas City Star. Critics alledge Huckabee was involved, but he denies influencing the parole board in any way. Already, on the discussion page of the article, where editors discuss its content, there had been allegations of a biased slant in favor of Mike Huckabee.