In response to another thread about what time do you expect the election will be called
It is my belief that the media, in their rush to be first, are going to call the election early and make the same mistake they made several decades ago by not waiting until the polls close on the west coast before calling it. Rachel Maddow alluded to this on her show a couple of weeks ago that MSNBC would be providing live coverage of exit polling on election night. Below is an article that eludes to the fact that other groups intend to do the same tomorrow. FTR, Rachal did not refer to this article when she addressed the issue on her show. I Googled it and found it on my own. But it addresses what she was talking about and I think it is the wrong thing to do.
This happened several decades ago during I believe it was Reagan vs Carter election in 1980. NBC jumped the gun trying to be first and used exit polling to call the election before the polls had closed on the West Coast. Many thought that this impacted a lot of down ballot votes because people who were headed to the polls after work simply did not bother to vote. It resulted in the media reaching an agreement for subsequent elections that results would not be called until the polls closed on the West Coast. Looks like the media including MSNBC to once again meddling in elections, when it doesn't need to, simply to be first. I hope it doesn't result in the same problems which cause people to stay home as a result of the early election calls.
Now, a group of data scientists, journalists and Silicon Valley entrepreneurs is seeking to upend that reporting tradition, providing detailed projections of who is winning at any given time on Election Day in key swing states, and updating the information in real time from dawn to dusk.
The plan is likely to cause a stir among those involved in reporting election results and in political circles, who worry about both accuracy and an adverse effect on how people vote. Previous early calls in presidential races have prompted congressional inquiries.
The company spearheading the effort, VoteCastr, plans real-time projections of presidential and Senate races in Colorado, Florida, Nevada, New Hampshire, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. It plans to publish a map and tables of its projected results on Slate, the online newsmagazine.
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/11/us/politics/election-results-voting.html
NBC did the same thing back in 1980 calling the Reagan Carter election early
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Uploaded on Mar 16, 2009
NBC News Decision 1980 Reagan Wins
NBC news projects at about 8:15 PM that Ronald Reagan is elected President. The early NBC projections sparked controversies inside and outside the media. A mayor protested that it "effectively ended the races even before the polls in her area are closed." A CBS commentator called it "small beer." ABC was caught under pressure and Walter Cronkite was forced to explain to viewers what was happening. Also, this was the first time that exit polls were used by a network as the sole basis for projecting a winner for a state. ...
This is a Youtube link and for some reason I can't get it to print out as a working link, but I wanted to acknowledge the source and was unable to do so because it opens immediately. The link had printed text which accompanied it but for some reason it doesn't print out.
= new reply since forum marked as read
