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Saturday, November 27, 2010

Ind. Gov't. - IN.gov uses ChaCha search, as does Indiana University [Updated]

From the State of Indiana website:

Improved Search: IN.gov has partnered with Indiana's ChaCha.com, to combine the best search results from other search engines along with dedicated human intelligence. Need additional help? Just chat with a skilled search expert immediately.
Here is a ChaCha search from Nov. 24, 2010, asking "what is the majority party in the Indiana House of Representatives?"

For insurance, I've made a PDF copy of the results I received on Nov. 24th. Apparently no one told the ChaCha experts about the Nov. 2 election results.

[Updated 11/28/10] A reader sent this message this morning:

I don't personally care for the ChaCha search engine ingov uses. It tends to borrow most of it's results from Google anyway. Not to nitpick, however, regarding the result of your query to it on 11-24-2010, I believe that until the newly elected Representatives are sworn in in January, that the search engine did return the correct response to your query. The November election hasn't changed anything "yet", but in January that'll be a different story.
ILB response. (1) I didn't query ChaCha, I have a bot that searches for all mentions of the Indiana General Assembly and it returned that page. The answer caught my eye. (2) More importantly, however, both ChaCha and the reader are incorrect. The members of the newly elected General Assembly were sworn in at the Organization/Orientation Day on Nov. 9th. Their terms had already begun. Per Article 5 of the Indiana Constitution:
Section 3. Senators shall be elected for the term of four years, and Representatives for the term of two years, from the day next after their general election. One half of the Senators, as nearly as possible, shall be elected biennially.
(History: As Amended November 6, 1984).
Apparently no one told the ChaCha "experts" about the Indiana Constitution.

[More] Another reader writes:

You would think that someone might have tried out ChaCha before they signed the entire state onto it :)

Interestingly, I googled the exact same question and received a response, through a link to Wikipedia, that appears to be correct and reflects the Republicans now have majority.

Posted by Marcia Oddi on November 27, 2010 06:28 PM
Posted to Indiana Government