Here is an example of the problem I'm having.. I have the keyword 'Sanders' in my database (i.e. Bernie Sanders). When I search the term 'Sander', it doesn't return any results. It has to be the complete search term 'Sanders'. Isn't this supposed to be addressed by turning on Word Stemming? Shouldn't it know to return the Bernie Sanders article if someone searches 'Sander'?

Yes, you are right. It should work. But unfortunately there are several inconsistencies in word stemming. Not only for English languages. The word stemming algorithms create a lot of unpredictable results in result listing.

Eventually it is more satisfyingly to use 'search with wildcards', like Sphider-plus does.

Tec