ANOTHER ELECTION REPORTING SNAFU COMING UP

Anyone still remember the mess all the news outlets made of reporting election results in 2000? Many of us still wonder if that wasn't a contrived deal to help Gore. Newscasters actually were calling the winner in states (like Florida) while citizens were still voting.

The problem started with a company named Voter News Service. VNS was owned by the Associated Press and the television networks. It was a profit making organization, a business. The rabidly left AP ran a large part of VNS, so there's little surprise about how they reported things.

Generally, through polls and exit polls, VNS built profiles on various precincts throughout a state so as to try to accurately predict the outcome of an election by the afternoon of election day. That information was then shared with network television producers so they could script their talking heads to report the election results.

On election night 2000, many Americans noticed that quite often the vote results displayed at the bottom of their television screens was greatly different than what the talking heads were announcing. Many times, Gore was projected the winner of a state when, in fact, the actual vote count displayed at the bottom of the screen showed Bush with a decisive lead. In fact, the VNS "decision desk" actually gave California to Gore as soon as the California polls closed and while the vote count was still zero. All networks, being programmed from the same consortium, immediately announced California for Gore within seconds of each other.

Generally speaking, the media does not project a state's results until the polls in that state have all closed. However, in 2000, they were in a hurry to cause a win for Gore. So, VNS -- and hence, all network news programs -- announced Florida as a win for Gore even before the Florida Panhandle polls were closed. The Panhandle is on Central time, you see, so the polls stayed open an hour later.

There is good data to support the fact that the early call for Florida and the so called "battleground states" helped suppress the conservative turnout in the West. That, of course, helped Gore quite a bit.

Later, the networks were forced to take back the Florida call for Gore. Much later, at 2:16 a.m., Fox News Channel declared Bush the winner in Florida. Within four minutes, NBC, CBS, CNN and ABC did exactly the same. That's when they all declared Bush the next President of the United States. All votes in all states were not yet counted. But, that wasn't important to the TV newsreaders.

Then, after 4 a.m., it became clear that the close Florida count was going south for Bush and would be contested. So, they had to take Florida away from Bush. Again, this happened at the same time on all networks.

By Wednesday, television networks tried to explain how they totally screwed up the call on the Florida election results -- twice. But, they couldn't really say much without digging themselves too deep in lies and deceptions, and/or letting America know that they are but talking puppets in the scheme of things. "We don't just have egg on our face," NBC's Tom Brokaw said. "We have an omelet."

Those of us on the Internet had raw data rather than VNS projections. Any network could have used the same data. ABC news ran a web site that updated the voter data in each state by the minute. But, they did not use their own site for broadcast reporting. Rather, they were programmed by the same VNS "projections" all other news programs used. The liberal AP was telling them what to say.

Many newspapers were not much better. Newspaper writers across the country wrote reports based on what they heard on TV and from the AP wires. So, after 4 a.m., there were reports of editors across the country shouting "stop the presses!"

The Voter News Service "decision desk" screwed up royally. According to some, VNS totally misanalyzed the Florida vote and embarrassed the network news shows.

Another interesting point: Those professional newsreaders, who were instructed to deride Dubya for occasionally mispronouncing a word or two on the campaign trail, themselves developed a bit of a diction problem. After 8 or 10 hours, the anchors and pundits were all babbling and butchering words regularly. Peter Jennings, Dan Rather, Cokie Roberts, Chris Matthews, all of them were articulating poorly. Now they know how candidates feel at the end of a long day on the campaign trail.

Yet another interesting point that should be related is these newsreaders expressed disdain for the Internet reporting of Matt Drudge. All networks (and many newspapers) made many, many more errors in one twelve hour period than Drudge had in a few years.

Fast forward to 2004 and network executives are vowing to do better on Nov. 2. "No one wants a repeat of what happened, when we became part of the story of election night," said NBC News Vice President Bill Wheatley.

"We all learned a lesson four years ago," said Fox News Senior Vice President John Moody. "There will probably be an abundance of caution in most newsrooms, at least in ours."

Voter News Service was abolished in January of last year after they totally screwed up the results again in the 2002 election. Does that mean the problem is corrected for this November? Nope! They're at it yet again.

According to Lawrence K. Grossman, who is a former president of NBC News and PBS, there is a new group taking the place of VNS this year.[1] As Grossman wrote in the Columbia Journalism Review:

"To save money, the networks will once again join forces to tally votes for the primaries, caucuses, and elections. This time, they've contracted with two firms, headed by the former CBS News election polling veterans Warren Mitofsky[2] and Joseph Lenski[3], to work together to conduct exit polls and supply data from a single set of sample precincts for all the networks' projections. The AP will collect the actual nationwide vote totals."

So there you have it. Election results will be compiled and reported by former CBS political reporters and reported by the rabidly left AP.

The rabidly left AP controlled VNS, so there's little surprise about how they reported things.

Americans noticed that vote results displayed at the bottom of their television screens were greatly different than the talk.

Those VNS "mistakes" certainly benefited Gore at the polls.

All networks (and many newspapers) made many, many more errors in one twelve hour period than Drudge had in a few years.

Voter News Service was abolished but they are at it again. They might as well let the Kerry Camp do it.

Just like my by-line says, we cannot rest regarding media bias. I can't believe we sit here ans watch as these organizations try and influence our democratic process. There needs to be a MASSIVE revolt against this type of behavior.

If, God forbid, Kerry were to prevail, half the country should boycott the major outlets until they die!

That's good. At Any Cost: How Al Gore Tried to Steal the Election by Bill Sammon, is a worthwhile nonfiction version.

The short take: Exit polling combined with information on key precincts give the liberal MSM a tremendous advantage in spinning the election in ways that effect voting across different time zones to their advantage. We need a Federal law that forbids election reporting until all polling places in the continental United States have closed.

> We need a Federal law that forbids election reporting
> until all polling places in the continental United
> States have closed.

We need that like we need "campaign finance reform".

The underlying problem is press honesty, and fixing that
is vastly more important than exit polling.

We can expect incorrect exit polling.
We can expect the legacy media to lie about the results,
and attempt to thus influence the election.
Make sure everyone knows.

Beyond that, vote early, like Monday.
I've already voted.

We need that like we need "campaign finance reform".

No parallel at all. The Constitution explicitly forbids "campaign finance reform," in Amendment One. It explicitly recognizes the rights of sovereign entities to regulate the times, places, and manner of elections. That includes empowering legislation. This would be easy to do. Calling the press to account is impossible, and wrong. You have a right to disseminate incorrect information if free speech has any meaning. You have the right to control the electoral process if representative democracy has any.

IIRC, SOS Kathryn Harris sent a letter to the networks and VNS several days prior to the election reminding them of the later closing of the Panhandle precincts.

The botched Florida call was no accident or oversight.

I was in NW Florida working at Hurlburt Field in Ft. Walton Beach during the 2000 Election. Many people to this day still do not realize that the entire panhandle of Florida west of Tallahassee is in the central time zone. The VNS announced that the state went to Gore at 7:49 PM Eastern time. Dan Rather(of recent forged document fame), according to Ann Coulter's book "Treason", announced no less than 18 times within the next 71 minutes that the polls in Florida were closed. Anybody think Dan didn't know this was a lie.
I shutter to think what is in store for the country on Nov. 3, 2004 when W wins again. They will stop at nothing, even trashing the voting system of this great republic, to unseat a lawfully elected president. The many stories of voter fraud, I'm afraid, are just the tip of the iceberg.

boycott?!

Whatever...

If kerry steals this election we should PERMANENTLY end the carriers of the leftists in the MSM.

Dont forget, election night and the weeks leading up to it are just another battle in the war on terror. This battle must be fought by us though.

can anyone tell me how "exit polling" is conducted? I mean, do they just ask voters who they voted for, or is it something more scientific? just wondering.

No idea, sorry.
I just know I was hopping mad when I heard that the polls in Florida were closed when I knew damn well they weren't. Some estimates suggest that the early prediction sent many people home who would have otherwise voted, maybe costing Bush 10,000 votes. The panhandle area has many retired military, who would have voted for Bush. But I still blame them for believing the liberal media.
Also, I bought a whole lot of fireworks in SC on my way down to celebrate the election to shoot when Bush won.

What if all of the USA voted on a Sunday from 6AM to 10PM EST? I think that would be a good idea. Alaska and Hawaii would have a small disadvantage but you would think on a Sunday they could manage -- or maybe they would vote late Saturday night at midnight, LOL.

Of course, if I were voting queen, I would have everyone sign the voter I.D. roll with their fingerprint so that everyone could be proven ELIGIBLE to vote, and only vote once, and I would have all absentee ballots have a fingerprint on them as well.

I'm writing this from a place about 100 miles south of the Arctic Circle and about 150 miles east of the Bering Sea... and it pisses off a lot of Alaskans to go to the polls on election day with hours to go before the polls close and listen to the East Coast states already counting votes and announcing results. How about a national voting time that would be the same for everyone everywhere - let's say closing the polls at 11 p.m. Eastern time and 7 p.m. Alaska time (and 6 p.m. Hawaii time). Then the talking heads would have all the time they need to report the results - and none of the opportunity to influence the vote itself.

Sadly, I think we are going to see much worse, this time around.

This election, is vitally important, in more than one way, this election is going to be be the dismantling of socialism in our country. The media and the far left politician's are going to use every dirty trick that they can come up with to win, after all, all they have to say is:

I'm sorry!

That is a problem that could be easily solved by not allowing the reporting of ANY results until ALL results are in, signed, sealed, delivered, and untamperable!

Though often said, it's possible Gore did not even win the 2000 election in the popular vote. Because of preemptive reporting, we may never know what the actual result of the (agreed, meaningless) popular vote might have been if people on the west coast and beyond had all cast their ballots. Bill Sammon's book, which I referenced in an earlier post, is an excellent piece of work on how the rigging of the election (nearly) occurred. Media misconduct on this will never be stopped, but some change in the reporting or timing of Federal elections along the lines suggested here are needed to keep the most damaging abuses from becoming national tragedies.

Dear voters in the western time zones and in multi-zone states. Please, please, please remember the lessons of 2000 that EVERY VOTE IS IMPORTANT, REGARDLESS OF WHAT THE NETWORKS ARE SAYING. Even Fox. Vote early to avoid the dilemma. Remember the precinct map that shows how the Electoral College protects our republic from the urban bastions of socialism. Even if you are sure your state is a gonner, your addition to the popular vote is important.

"can anyone tell me how "exit polling" is conducted"

I did exit polling this spring during a presidential primary for Mitofsky's company. I was paid $200 for a long (9AM-7PM) job. As people came out of the polling room I asked them if they were willing to complete an exit poll. A little less than half were. I had paper questionaires (separate ones for D's and R's) that asked who you voted for but also asked about what issues were most important, religious background, family income, education, and a bunch of other things. Three times during the day I had to call a toll free number and read questionaire results to someone at their headquarters. Finally, I mailed all the survey forms to the company and they sent me a check. People were pleasant enough for the most part, but I wouldn't do it again because it was too much work for $200.

We need that like we need "campaign finance reform".

Sure it works out a lot better if we wait on the press to become honest.</sarcasm>

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