I'm curious about what all of you think about this:
Currently (10:22pm on Nov. 2nd 2010), election and decision results are coming in for the various Senate, House, Props, Judges, etc.
According to the moment by moment count running on the Internet, the Senate race in California is as follows: 47% for Boxer, 47% for Fiorina.
However, all of the news agencies, including Fox and AP, are declaring Barbara Boxer the winner.
A few minutes ago, the count was 47% Boxer, 48% Fiorina, then fell back to dead even at 47% each.
So, I want to know what all of you think of the way the media handles a race like this. It is SO close, with only 22% of the vote counted, that the numbers are dead even.
Is it right for the media to announce to us that the decision has already been made?
Why do you think this happens?
Is it possible that this practice skews the election results by declaring a winner long before it can be known what the final outcome is?
My opinion: this is a horrible practice and should be illegal. When a race is this close, no announcements except "too close to call" should be allowed.
Dave Hernandez
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2 comments:
Since they do not make the predictions until the polls close at 8:00pm, I don't see how it can make a difference.
I noticed the same thing Dave. It was crazy to me that MSNBC called it at 47% to 47%. I don't understand how they do this. The only thing I can think of is that they have some sort of algorithm takes into account conservative and liberal constituencies and makes the call when enough of the "up in the air" cities have cast their vote.
I don't follow how this skews the election results though, as long as they don't announce anything until the polls close.
On this note however, I do know of some people that were standing in the last line to vote for McCain when Obama was declared the winner. That is pretty ridiculous.
This still takes no more fun out of an election then polls themselves though. I'm not in favor of government controlling media to that extent. Let the media risk their own reputations if they want to go out on a limb. It has happened before, where even newspapers had to be retracted.
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