On Fri, 24 Feb 2012 22:16:45 -0600, "Doug"
wrote:

I have a electrical box that I pulled out the 3 way switch for
examining the wiring. It has one two wire cable and one three wire
cable going into it. The white wires are wire nutted together and so
are the ground wires. However the ground wires in this box are not
attached to the switch. According to one reference, it says the
ground wires should be attached to the switch yet the author's own
diagram just shows the 2 ground wires wire nutted together and not
attached to the switch. Does it matter whether they attach to the
switch or not?
The ground wire is a SAFETY GROUND which should be connected to
either a metal box or the green grounding tab provided on SOME plastic
boxes (which then grounds the mounting tab of the switch)