By Gary M. Pinkston
First published in the Record Gazette, Feb., 2001. STATE - Calling the Networks "guilty of Malpractice," Californian Secretary of State Bill Jones submitted testimony on the negative affects of exit polling and premature election calls by the TV Networks to the House Energy and commerce Committee. The committee is holding hearings to review the Network's use of exit polls to project winners in national elections. Jones cited numerous studies and surveys that underscore the clear negative impact such projections have on voter turnout and election results in the west. "The issue of early projections based on exit polling and the devastating effect it has on voters in the Western United States is one I have wrestled with since taking office in 1995," Jones told the committee. "In California, this is a critical issue and has been for more than two decades." Jones advocates the Networks dropping the use of exit polls and reporting only actual vote tabulations from each state's Secretary of State's office as they become available. According to Jones, in 1998 he and the Secretaries of State of all fifty states petitioned the Networks to stop the projecting practice to no avail. Again in 2000 Jones contacted each Network by letter and phone asking them to refrain from calling elections based on exit polls, citing the chilling effect early projection of winners has on voters in the Western states. The Networks once again failed to respond in a positive way. Data presented by Jones in his testimony before the House committee leaves little doubt the Network's erroneous premature call of Florida for Al Gore deeply affected voter turnout in California. Gore was listed by the Networks as the winner in Florida from 4:50 p.m. to 7:15 p.m., Pacific time, before the projection was rescinded and Florida was put back on the board as undecided. Typically, these would be the two highest hours of voting in California, yet data from those California counties that report voting by the hour show a dramatic drop-off in turnout during those hours immediately following the Network's projection of Gore having won Florida. Data from those counties shows a drop in voting rate during these prime voting hours from 160,000 votes per hour to about 80,000 votes per hour, a drop of 50%, once Gore had been named the winner. As further evidence of the negative impact early projections have on voting in the west Jones also quoted several studies done in the wake of the 1980 and 1984 presidential elections. A University of Michigan Study of the 1980 election concluded that early Network calls of a Reagan victory, coming at 5:15 p.m. Pacific time, reduced overall turnout 6% in the East, 9% in the South and, 12% in both the Mid-West and the West. The study further showed that, among Western voters who had not voted by the time the projection was made, turnout was depressed by 17% among voters of the party projected to lose but by only 13% among those of the winning party. In 1984 Reagan won by an even bigger margin than he had in 1980 and the Networks made their projection of his victory just four minutes after the first polls closed in the East at 5:04 p.m. Pacific time. A study of the that election by the Committee for the Study of the American Electorate determined that 80% percent of states where the polls were still open at the time of the projection suffered declines in voter turnout for that election while the majority of states where polls had closed before the projections were announced showed and increase in overall turnout. The fact of projections depressing turnout in the west and doing so more among the prospective voters of the losing party than those of the winning party clearly demonstrates the impact the projections have on local and state races in Western states, including races for the U.S. House and Senate. These numbers indicate a clear possibility the incredibly close 2000 Senate race in Washington State may have been determined by the early and incorrect Network projections and that without those projections the Republicans may well have maintained a majority in the U.S. Senate instead of the current 50-50 split. With Al Gore having won in the mid-western state of Wisconsin by only 6,000 votes, and in the three Western states of New Mexico, Washington and Oregon by a total of less than 20,000 votes, it is entirely possible the fiasco in Florida following the election could have been entirely avoided through Bush victories in those states had the Network's premature projection of a Gore win in Florida not depressed Republican turnout in the west. According to Secretary Jones (and Jones claims all fifty Secretaries of State agree with him) it is imperative the Networks begin showing restraint in making premature projections based on exit polls. "The Networks have to apply two measurements to rationalize what they report on election night," Jones says. "One, are they certain what they are about to report is accurate? Two, will what they are about to report unfairly change the outcome?" One potential solution the Secretaries are considering should the Networks fail to step up to the bar and act more responsibly is for all the state's to withhold actual vote counts from the media until 7 p.m. or 7:30 p.m., Pacific time, on election night. The theory being the Networks would not dare go out on a limb with exit poll projections without at least some actual vote tallies to back them up. According to Jones, a recent survey by the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press showed an overwhelming 87% of voters think the media should wait until the votes are actually counted before any announcements are made. This clearly shows the voters themselves have the patience to wait the couple of hours its takes for the states to tabulate and report actual results and do not need the instant gratification of the Networks premature exit poll based projections. |
