Ratings-ravenous CNN (and the others) got to eat crow, and a full plate of it, after having to retract the announcement it made 37 seconds before abc, 56 seconds before cbs… (well, you get the picture) giving Florida to Gore. They were lambasted by political analysts, not to mention people from the Bush camp. And rightly so. Perhaps this will serve to put an end to this ludicrous, purely ratings-driven practice of announcing winners based on the results of a handful of polls and their projections arrived at from a host of less than truly scientific instruments of measure.
Doubtful. People watch to see results. Next time they’ll be a bit more cautious. Overall, I’d have to say they’ve got an excellent track record. But nobody remembers all the early calls they got right.
I would unfortunately tend to agree with you that it is doubtful. Actually, such a practice wouldn’t matter that much if all polls closed at the same time. Not the case. Who knows how many votes Bush lost on the basis of that wrong information until CNN and others corrected their initial statement? By the way, being Canadian, I’m neither pro-Bush or pro-Gore: I’m simply against the practice, from which we unfortunately suffer as well in Canada.
And I also agree with you that projections are usually right…
Or possibly Gore lost.
Why is it that everyone assumes that if someone projects the winner, only the supporters of the defeated decide not to vote? If the election is close, I’d believe it’d motivate the other team to vote. If it isn’t, I’d believe it’d dissuade supporters of the victor (Why should I go out, he already won?).
In this case, the Florida Panhandle is mostly Republican. If the Republicans there heard that Gore won, after hearing the CNN report, they might have said, “Ah, to hell with it.” If that were the case, then Bush would have gotten fewer votes than he would have otherwise.
What I want to know is this: How could MO keep the polls open in a Democratic city, but close all of the other polls in the state?
I can only speak from personal experience here…I’ve never voted, I’m 42. This year I voted. I knew that I lived in a traditionally Republican state. (Can’t wait to retire so I can move!) Yet I voted anyway. I voted because I didn’t want what I consider the greedy, bigoted, homophobic, hypocritical party to win by a big old landslide in my state. I wanted the rest of the country to know that they don’t control my state entirely, and they don’t. The margin was very small. This morning I feel a certain amount of personal statisfaction that I went to the polls and voiced my opinion. I will never neglect to vote again. My vote does count. So speculating that the media, which has been pro-Bush through this entire campain, did some dirty trick to make him lose Florida sounds a little like sour grapes to me. Whine on!
Needs2know
Hands up, anyone who changed their vote based on what CNN or any other media outlet projected during election day.
Right, I didn’t think so.
Define ‘election day’: if you mean before results started to come in, I would agree with you. Otherwise, I’m not so sure.
Considering that Nader voters were polling at 8-12% in Washingotn and California and those voters got to see the debacle that was the Florida call and then recall and then the states voted for Nader at a ridiculously low rate (4% I believe) I think that some people did change their votes.
Sorry, should have said “after CNN started coloring in states in red or blue”.
Grendel69, I’m asking if anyone here actually changed their vote based on the above. My position is that although such speculation is common, one would be hard-pressed to find a person who had done so. I can see a greater possibility that a few more people who were not going to bother to vote might do so; but that’s a good thing, right?
I’m hearing about the election this morning on the news, they just stated that there is a difference of 2000 votes between the Democrats and the Republicans. So far the U.S. is without a president.
WOW.
If this happened in Canada the winning party would be in a difficult spot with no majority in the House of Commons, the other parties could pretty well overturn any decisions they disagreed with if they got together. Minority governments don’t do well here for that reason and I am wondering how this works in the U.S. I know that if the Republicans win they have the majority in the Senate as well so they would have less trouble getting things going their way.
I agree that the media in the States acted irresponsibly by giving reports based on insufficient information. I can’t really say that this would affect how people voted elsewhere.
…in the state of Florida, upon which this particular election is now hinged.
But nationally, Gore has just over a quarter million votes more than Bush. Which of course means squat without an electoral majority.
Not to detract from your point about this extremely close election, Feynn, but I just want to make sure you had the facts straight.
Um, Feynn-we still have a prez…
Clinton!
He’s president until January.
Needs- I am curious: Why have you never voted in the other 24 elections in which you were eligible (at least in terms of your age)?
Citizenship? Apathy? Strong beliefs that you felt would never be properly represented? Too wasted to find the polls?
I really am curious, although I suppose since this is the Pit, I should have just royally flamed you for sitting on the sidelines all these years!
If I were a Joe Smith supporter who hadn’t voted yet, and I tuned into CNN and learned that Jane Jones had already been awarded my state after early returns showed her winning 67% of the vote, I might not bother voting, I suppose, although I probably still would.
If, on the other hand, I tuned into CNN and learned that Jane Jones had been awarded my state in a squeaker with an anticipated 51% of the vote, I would RUN, not walk, to the polls to pull the Smith lever, following which I would call every damn person I knew in the state and curse them out royally if they hadn’t done likewise.
Which seems to be the response of the Florida panhandle residents whose clocks are set to Central time–the “We’ll just see about that” factor!
Anyone who decided not to vote based on CNN’s projections with 5% of the vote in screwed themself as far as I’m concerned. Most of the speculation I’ve heard was by the media itself, the commentators and such didn’t seem to care much about the issue.