We hardly knew ye.
Posted on 12/29/2002 5:07:19 PM PST by GeneD
The major television news networks and The Associated Press are seriously considering dissolving their decadelong partnership in the Voter News Service, the Election Day polling organization that was at the heart of the problems they had in reporting the results of the last two national elections, network executives close to the discussions said.
At the very least, the partnership will probably scrap the multimillion-dollar upgrade of the service's computer system, its main component, which has been fraught with technical problems, the executives said.
The dissolution of the partnership would leave in doubt the news media's plans for reporting the results of the primaries and the general election with only a little more than a year to go before the presidential campaign's first test in Iowa. The service has dozens of subscribers, including The New York Times, which rely on it as the main source of Election Day projections and analysis.
Executives who know about the deliberations said a vote on the future of the service could come as early as Jan. 6, when the partners are scheduled to meet. Though they did not think it was likely that the service would survive a vote, these people said they could not rule out its continuation. They all cited a confidentiality agreement and spoke on the condition that their names not be used.
The computer system that is in question was to replace the one that in part led the major television networks to make errors in calling the state of Florida — first for Al Gore, then for George W. Bush — during the 2000 presidential election. That system's statistical models produced erroneous results; its software failed to detect an overcount for Mr. Bush in Volusia County.
In the elections last month, the new system's first real test, various technical glitches delayed the transmission of election results from some states. At an estimated cost of $8 million to $12 million, the system has yet to produce a survey of voters leaving the polls analyzing how important blocs — like blacks, gays and married people — voted and what motivated them in their choices.
Executives at the partner organizations — ABC, CBS, NBC, Fox News, CNN and The Associated Press — are said by people close to the polling organization's board to have little confidence in the system, which was initially expected to be in perfect working order by the 2004 campaign.
With that target now in doubt, executives at some of the partner organizations said they believed they would be better off starting from scratch now rather than taking a chance that the system's bugs can be worked out in the next year.
They clearly do not want to relive election night 2000, when their flawed calls angered both parties for complicating the close vote count. The errors led to embarrassing Congressional hearings where executives of the news organizations were dressed down by legislators.
Several proposals to replace the service are being discussed, executives said. One would have the networks share the costs of yet another vote projection system, with the six partners then hiring an independent organization or academic institution to produce the surveys of voters leaving the polls.
Another possibility is for The Associated Press, which already provides its own vote counting service, to start a second one for use by the networks and clients of the Voter News Service. Failing that, it could at least devise features in its existing system for double-checking its data, a function the Voter News Service has served.
Under yet another, though less likely, plan, the partners would cede the vote projection and analysis work to CNN, a unit of AOL Time Warner. CNN devised its own election system in crucial precincts as a way to double-check for flaws in the news service data last month.
Then again, executives said, the networks could go off and partner with one or two other organizations to devise competing proprietary systems, much as they did before 1988.
After elections that year, the networks began to pool their resources as a way to fight the high costs of new vote projection and analysis technology that allowed them to call elections much faster than before. They had previously teamed with newspaper partners to provide several different vote analyses.
By joining together, the networks and The Associated Press have saved up to $10 million a year, according to an analysis by Tom Wolzien, a media analyst at Sanford C. Bernstein. Lacking the resources to start polling operations without network partners, newspapers became subscribers to the service.
Good-government groups and other news organizations have complained that by effectively reducing the number of Election Day projection and polling operations, the networks created more room for error.
The various services before the Voter News Service was formed worked as a loose verification system in which the erroneous information of one could be noticed because of the accurate findings of the others.
But network executives said the networks would probably decide against paying the extra money to go off on their own. Several competing executives said their alternate plans would include some sort of joint operation. "It's just a matter of cost," one executive said.
The networks and The Associated Press are still trying to figure out what they can salvage from the polling operation. If they scrap the system, they could try to revive some of the new software that was devised for it.
The Voter News Service is also trying to determine how to proceed with the contractor that is building the system, the Battelle Memorial Institute, which is still owed more than $2 million. Battelle, a privately held research company based in Columbus, Ohio, could conceivably sue the service for ending the project before it was complete. It could likewise hamper the partners' efforts to salvage parts of the computer system.
Battelle, however, may not have the high ground. Its system was supposed to be in working order by the last election, when it was to provide projections of winners and local and national polls that would explain the voting patterns.
But the system was hobbled on Election Day. Shortly before the polls closed, the service warned its subscribers that the system would not be fully operational and would probably not be able to produce the poll results.
As the day wore on, its servers, the powerful computers that run networks, were overloaded by data coming in from many states and counties, and the system crashed several times during the evening, several executives said.
The Voter News Service and its clients are still waiting for survey data that was supposed to be available on election night.
Battelle declined to comment on its contract with the service.
A network executive involved in discussions about the fate of the service said that he doubted it would continue because "there's zero faith" in it.
Exactly. As it is we have at least one Senator fro South Dakota who blatently stole the election. Democrat voter fraud is layed out in all its glory in the movie Gangs of New York.
It not only discourages some voters, but it is completely wrongheaded. Voting day should be just that. A day when voters go to the polls, cast votes and then wait for the final count.
News organizations have made it an event that requires news stories to be blown up in order to attract viewers. This is wrong. If Florida had not been called early for President Bush, before MOST in the panhandle had even voted.....then it is likely President Bush would have garnered an additional THIRTY SEVEN THOUSAND VOTES and that election bru-ha-ha intentionally inspired by the DNC who paid a calling service out of Texas to phone Miami Dade and Broward County democrats and encourage complaints could have NEVER happened.
Who needs reporters out in the trenches making stupid reports in an attempt to be the first to announce the winner-it kills the spirit of the day.
This year, it correctly told the Media that the Republicans were winning back the Senate. The Media were so incredulous that instead of reporting the results, they pulled the plug on their own service in the middle of the election.
They will now try to come up with another way of hurting Republican turn out, now that this one failed.
Clearly , you mean "called early for Gore," and we are in complete agreement, except I believe it was intentional skulduggery-- see the early call for Gore in N.M. which really wasn't decided for days, versus the very slow calls for Bush in Colorado and Utah, which Bush was landsliding.
You are right. They were contracted by the media and the media selected which of their reports to televise and to print and when. But they have been discredited because of it.
I wonder what will replace them.
1993--that's gotta be old news--before the Clintons would have had a chance to really corrupt everything.
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