response 66 of 96:

Dec 16 06:00 UTC 2000

And yes, I did go and reread the responses, just to make sure.  There 
were brief flickers of actual discussion, but not many.

response 68 of 96:

Dec 16 19:00 UTC 2000

Re 64.  I wrote a response to this earlier, but it was lost when I lost
my connction.

What proportion of Florida is on Central Time?  Nine rural counties? 
"Much of the state" seems to overstate the case.

In theory, yes, this is a "break" which went Gore's way.

Nonethess, it's hard to imagine (1) a Bush voter (2) who hadn't voted by
the last hour of the day, (3) BUT was interested enough to tune into CNN
to see how the election was going, (4) heard Florida called for Gore, or
noticed the color of Florida on CNN's map of states, (5) decided not to
bother voting in the presidential election since the state had already
been decided. 

Since presumably this hypothetical individual lives in a rural area, he
probably doesn't live right across the street from the polling place. 
Certainly in Michigan rural voters have to drive a fair distance to get to
the schoolhouse or township hall where the polls are; I presume it's
similar in Florida.  So what's he doing, thirty minutes before the polls
close, sitting at home watching CNN (he cares about the election) when he
hasn't voted yet?

When Democrats complained about the "butterfly" ballot in Palm Beach
County, there were numerous actual people who stepped forward, despite
their embarrassment, to say that they had accidentally voted for Buchanan. 
Did anyone in extreme western Florida step forward and say, "yeah, I would
have voted for Bush, but CNN called the state for Gore, so I didn't
bother?"  I didn't hear of any.

What we're imagining here is someone who cared enough about the election
to let CNN's coverage affect his behavior, and yet who didn't care enough
about races like U.S. Senator, Congress, state legislature, etc. to
actually cast a vote.

Voters in many other states managed to find their way to the polls despite
the fact that nobody thought there was the slightest doubt about the
presidential outcome in their state.

Had I been a Bush operative on Election Night, sure, I would have been
outraged at CNN for calling Florida before every one of its polls had
closed.  And sure, I would have demanded that the call be retracted until
the last nine counties had closed.

BUT (not knowing everything that went down since then), I would have
assumed that CNN was probably right, that the state was probably going for
Gore.  My concern would have been, not Florida itself, but Missouri,
Wisconsin, Iowa, Washington, etc.  If CNN had been able to say "ALL of the
battleground states are going for Gore," that might have created a
little but of a bandwagon effect which could affect the views of voters in
other states.

As far as Florida goes, though, I doubt very much that the premature call
for Gore affected the Bush/Gore totals in more than single digits.  There
wasn't time.

response 70 of 96:

Dec 16 21:37 UTC 2000

        When was it that the TV networks where calling states for
a candidate by  noon?  They got lambbasted for that, and decided
on self control to not call a state until polls closed?

response 72 of 96:

Dec 18 02:55 UTC 2000

I agree with most of #68, but I think you have to be a little more careful
with the "rural counties" stereotype.  Rural counties have towns and cities
in them too, and a substantial portion of their populations live in such town
and cities, and are quite close to their polling places.  I don't think the
"travel time to polling places" things is really that big an issue for most
rural county residents.

response 74 of 96:

Dec 18 03:48 UTC 2000

Also possibly interesting is that the population of the ten counties
together is about 5% of Florida's total.  So, 95% of the population of
Florida is on Eastern Time, 5% on Central Time.

Michigan has the same problem: there are four counties on Central Time.
The four counties have a total of 82,978 people in 4,078 square miles.
That amounts to 0.86% of the state's total population.

Should networks refrain from "calling" Michigan statewide races until
polling places in those four Central Time counties have closed?

To some extent, I think this is an old-fashioned issue, from the days when
the television networks were the dominant news source.  Already, VNS's
survey results are not only leaked but spread like wildfire via email and
web sites.  A couple of election cycles from now, this will all look
pretty quaint.

response 76 of 96:

Dec 18 15:51 UTC 2000

Yay! Something we agree upon.

response 78 of 96:

Dec 18 19:39 UTC 2000

Well, I don't want to *ban* exit polling. I just want the media to
restrain themselves and not do it, and/or convince voters that they
consider that it is worthwhile keeping their secret ballot secret.

response 80 of 96:

Dec 19 02:05 UTC 2000

Asking a question is "molesting"?  Interesting.

response 82 of 96:

Dec 19 04:42 UTC 2000

I'm all in favor of exercising my 1stAmendment rights by lying to 
pollsters.  

response 84 of 96:

Dec 19 15:48 UTC 2000

I can handle it, I am not sure the news people can handle it.  I would much
rather have accurate and truthful information a little later as opposed to
speculation or untruths earlier.

The press in this country has learned they can manipulate the information and
effect the outcome of certain activities, if they so desire.  Some do so
desire.

In the course of the election, the media made not only one error but 3 in
florida.  That rush to informe MAY have effected the outcome, and did effect
the post election legal actions.

If they had waited, not just for the vote to finish, but for all the votes
to be counted, then recounted because of the closeness of the race, we may
have had either Gore or Bush conceding without all the legal hassle.

Now, you could say that the good thing is that it made us aware of errors in
the voting process we were un-aware of before, and we can now fx those errors.

What makes me mad is that the media may have known about these errors before
but chose not to make an issue of it.

response 86 of 96:

Dec 19 20:52 UTC 2000

Bruce, you are overlooking the nature of the beast.  The media make their
money from advertising.  Advertisers buy space in media that have an audience.
The media get audience by being *first* with the critical information.  This
is why television can beat out newspapers every time:  TV can get it in front
of you while it is happening.  Newspapers can't.  Even this morning's paper
is selling yesterday's news.

You want that changed?  Find a way to pay the reporters, editors and analysts
that does not depend on them scooping their competitors.

response 88 of 96:

Dec 20 01:41 UTC 2000

Exit polls exist because there are a sufficient number of people who don't
care about keeping their own vote secret.  Our votes are supposed to be
secret; and much of the US election law has to do with how to keep them
secret.  But nothing in those laws forbids us from revealing our own vote
voluntarily.  (shades of the First Amendment).  

Exit polls exist because the number of people willing to do that is large
enough that statistically significant projections can be made using those
voluntary disclosures.  *Insert Response 86*