Shortest election night ever?

[Kingfish]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/politico/20081017/pl_politico/14660

 

Network news executives said they are preparing for an unusual Election Night challenge: How to be honest with the audience, and still keep them tuned in, if the race between John McCain and Barack Obama is effectively decided before most Americans have finished dinner.

 

After two elections in which the suspense went far into the evening (and, in the case of 2000, for 36 days afterward), the executives said they are contemplating how to manage their newscasts in the event of an Obama blowout — in which the Democrat’s victory would be obvious while polls are still open in most of the country.

[DC Tom]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/politico/20081017/pl_politico/14660

 

Simplest solution would be to treat it like news and not some sort of sporting event.

[Boomer860]

Simplest solution would be to treat it like news and not some sort of sporting event.

You got that right. The media will want to celebrate as soon as possible as they will consider it thier win and rightly so.

[Wacka]

When the McCain landslide is evident!!

[DC Tom]

You got that right. The media will want to celebrate as soon as possible as they will consider it thier win and rightly so.

 

You thought THAT was my point???

[Boomer860]

You thought THAT was my point???

No , just another point

[Booster4324]

Simplest solution would be to treat it like news and not some sort of sporting event.

 

I agree that we shouldn't treat it like a sporting event. The whole process should be changed to "America's Next President"

 

We could do it two ways with the final winners (1 Repub 1 Dem) being announced in 2012.

a) One of the networks asks all presidential candidates for their participation...this seems unlikely even if this is a joke. However, if a couple of them did it, the rest might go. I mean we are talking 4 years of media exposure.

b) One of the networks asks all semi qualified people if they are interested. Again there is the media exposure and for the wannabes that will never get a chance the endorsement of a network (ignore the fact they can endorse both) could be invaluable.

 

At least we would know these candidates thoroughly.

 

[The Avenger]

Actually, I think it may be very late before the networks call enough races to select an overall winner.

 

Let me start by saying that I've seen how the calls are made - in 1992 I worked for ABC News and my boss was the person in charge of looking at the data, making a call for a certain sate and phoning it down to Peter Jennings on the set. Calls were made by looking at waves of exit polls. All the networks as well as the AP have long joined forces to pool polling data and they all look at the same data on election day - this ensures everyone has access to the same data at the sme time (what they do with that data and when they decide to call a race one way or another is up to the individual organizations).

 

This year is tricky from a polling perspective. The pre-election polls are showing problems. There's the Bradley effect we've all heard so much about - Obama's numbers may be less than the polls show because some voters say they will vote for a black candidate but actually won't. On the other hand, these polls don't include people whose only phone may be a cell phone and these people tend to be younger and break more for Obama than the general population. 2004 showed that the bigger the turnout and the more first time voters who turn out tend to make the polls less accurate than normal.

 

Exit polls on election day are also showing some issues. The Democratic primaries showed exit polls overstated Obama's numbers on a somewhat regular basis - some theorize Obama supporters were generally younger and more excited about their candidate and were more willing to take an exit poll. The primaries have also shown that in states where 15-20%+ of the turnout come from black voters Obama did much better than he polled.

 

So you end up with a situation where 3 things come into play: pre-election polls are showing they're not always accurate, exit polls have shown to be problematic in the primaries and you have the spectre of the 2000 and 2004 elections where races on election night were called incorrectly. Add these together and I think networks may be very gunshy to call a close race and may wait until actual vote tallies come in before calling a race - that'll mean a late night.

[Wacka]

I think the exit polls are total BS. Why not just talk about the actual vote counts. The networks just use them to discourage republicans from voting. If you look at the last few elections, they will very quickly pick a state for a dem, but if a Republicn is ahead, it is always too close to call for a while.

[Max Fischer]

I think the exit polls are total BS. Why not just talk about the actual vote counts. The networks just use them to discourage republicans from voting. If you look at the last few elections, they will very quickly pick a state for a dem, but if a Republicn is ahead, it is always too close to call for a while.

 

How did your tinfoil confirm that conspiracy? That' supposed to be secret. Rats foiled again.

[Fingon]

This election could be decided by the Bradley effect. That means that people are more likely to tell pollsters they voted for a black candidate to avoid being called racist.

[Fan in Chicago]

Simplest solution would be to treat it like news and not some sort of sporting event.

You are so correct. The election night coverage resembles a finely produced reality TV event.