Why should networks wait until polls close to call election races?

I remember exactly where I was in 1980 when a TV network called the presidential election for Ronald Reagan. I was listening to the radio.

Daddy and I were driving to Butte, where I would spend a week with him during his research sabbatical at Montana Tech. I was too young to vote but not too young to care, and as we drove across the state in early-winter darkness, we were riveted to the historic moment unfolding over the airwaves. I recall that from the moment we tuned in, the reports made clear that Reagan was in command. The radio wasn't quite ready to call him the winner, but one TV network did: NBC, led by its main anchor John Chancellor, which that night became the very first television network to use exit polling to project the winner of an election. And by early evening in the Mountain West, those polls told NBC that the Gipper was running away with it.

Well, you know the rest -- Carter told his press aide Jody Powell that it was "ridiculous" not to concede right away, so he did, before polls on the West Coast had closed. The combined effect of early projection and concession was one of those watershed moments in modern media history that led to the custom, to this day, of the networks not projecting winners in a state until its polls had closed.

This election isn't quite like 1980, because there weren't a bevy of polls and number-crunchers confidently predicting Reagan's election, the way they are with Barack Obama. However, the scenario on Election Night could well repeat itself. The networks could be ready to call this thing early. The way things are looking right now, 1980 is about to repeat itself. And if so, the media policy formed in 1980 is about to become obsolete. Two factors are in play here:

1. the very real possibility that Obama will be projected winner of enough states to win him the 270 electoral votes he needs to be declared president before voting ends across the U.S., and
2. the sudden arrival of the Internet as the advance guard in producing and reporting election information.

These two factors can't be considered separately; only when you combine the possibility of landslide with the agility of the Internet and its rapid downstream effect -- people able to text, email and cell-call each other as soon as news breaks -- does the reality of the brave new world we're in seem thuddingly obvious.

Imagine this scenario if you will: You're standing in line in Flagstaff, Arizona -- no, not the voting line, the grocery line -- when your friend texts you that the radio is reporting that Huffington Post and some geek website called "538" are projecting McCain to lose Virginia and Colorado and there is just no way he gets to 270. He's lost. Now you're wondering whether to go stand in line to vote or not.

You're a Republican, and perhaps it occurs to you that you should be supporting your gal Sydney Ann Hay in her effort to win the open seat in the First District, where you live. But perhaps it doesn't occur to you that a Democrat, Ann Kirkpatrick, is poised to take back a House seat from the GOP. So:

If you decide not to vote, who gets the blame if the Republican narrowly loses Arizona's 1st? Not TV. It had nothing to do with this. How about "The Internets"? OK, but which website do you blame? And what do you do -- boycott a website? Fat lotta good that will do. Denial of service attack? Illegal, sad to say.

See, in the brave new future of electoral reporting, the TV networks don't run the show. An archipelago of large and small websites do, and they aren't going to be lectured by people at Poynter or anyone else about what they should and shouldn't be reporting.

So let's go back to 1980. Jimmy Carter knew on the morning of the election that he was a goner. His internal polling was unambiguous. So when NBC, the first TV network to employ exit polling, stated with confidence at 8:15 Eastern Time that he was a goner, Carter turned to his press aide Jody Powell and said, let's get this over with, which they did with a concession speech delivered at 9:50 p.m., or 10 to 7 on the West Coast, a full 70 minutes before polls closed.

Jim Hill, an Oregon Democrat, would later say "I just couldn't believe" Carter conceded before the Oregon polls closed. Hill was running for the seat held by two-term state Rep. Al Riebel. He lost by 59 votes.

Across the western U.S. came reports from PO'd Democrat politicians, upset at Carter's early concession. Hawaii's voter turnout, which was 85 percent in 1976, fell to 79 percent that night. Washington State: 69 percent compared with 77 percent four years earlier. California: 76 percent in '80 down from 82 percent (most states would kill for numbers like that now).

"It's very obvious that Jimmy Carter cost us this election," said Clinton Reilly, campaign manager for Rep. James Corman, the California congressman who lost by 864 votes out of 145,000 cast. "We had people refusing to go to the polls all over the place," he told the AP after the election. In Oregon, Rep. Al Ullman joined Hill as a narrowly-defeated Dem upset at the timing of Carter's speech. And on and on, from small races to large ones, Carter was blamed for accelerating the Reagan/GOP landslide. Carter, in turn, pointed to NBC.

West Coast politicians, predictably, called for legislation to beat back the creeping tide of TV prognostication. "After all we've done to get people to go out and vote ... we are discouraging voting by the fact that people turn on their car radios and learn the ballgame is over," said snoozy Sen. S.I. Hayakawa in California. Only because the networks pledged self-restraint were we spared a round of media regulatory follies.

In hindsight, though, there was no reason NBC's announcement should have produced the outcomes that followed. The Democratic machine in many parts of the country was a mess after four years of Carterism and decades of taking voters for granted. Reagan, meanwhile, was at the helm of a smooth-running campaign that would coast to even larger victories in 1984. It was easy to blame NBC, which was using exit polls for the first time and did something maybe it wished it hadn't in calling the race early. But the fact was the Democrats didn't anticipate problems on Election Night -- and where have we heard that before?

The Obama campaign is, if nothing else, a well-oiled machine. It has put the fear of God (and four more years of Bush policy) into the hearts of its supporters. It has urged eternal vigilance from coast to coast. If the Obama campaign doesn't have a strategy for helping candidates on the West Coast -- which is going very blue by all indications -- then it has only itself to blame. Same goes for local operations across the country; heck, the election could be over before 7 p.m. Central time, when polls in Kansas close. Could that make the difference in the Nancy Boyda-Lynn Jenkins race? (Probably not, but worth asking if you're a campaign manager there.)

There are tight races across the Western U.S., large and small, and if the candidates there did not learn the lesson of 1980, then yes, they may be doomed to repeat it. And they will blame the messenger. And they will be wrong to do so. Not because the messenger will be un-blameworthy, but because it will do no good. As we saw with the John Edwards scandal this summer, the MSM can only keep the lid on a hot story so long. And don't expect any penitence to come from some of the sites that break the news the networks won't. Indeed, it's possible a conservative site would have reasons to get the word out of a Democrat winning early in order to depress voting that would affect down-ballot Democrats.

At a time when FiveThirtyEight.com has become the go-to site for election prognostication, the day is coming when an Internet site scoops TV networks on Election Night. At that point, blaming messengers will be not only useless and pointless, but fruitless. The genie will be out of the bottle, out of the house and down the road, shopping for new outfits at Neiman Marcus.

That's why I believe that TV networks should abandon their self-imposed moratoriums and put the responsibility for voting where it belongs, on the voter. Networks should be free to report projections as soon as they are comfortable making them and let the campaigns worry about shepherding the voters to the polls. Because the day is fast approaching when they won't be the first to call the winners, anyway.

AUDIO: Chip Franklin and I talked about this story this morning on KOGO Radio, San Diego's news-talk giant.

(Thanks to Chuck Todd for hipping me to the First District race in his excellent state-by-state rundown.)

Comments

[Linda]

Because they dissuade voters from voting and manipulate the vote. Kind of like when journalists are so very biased that they write sixty seven percent positive articles about one candidate and half as many as the other.

There is no ethical journalism in America anymore and very few journalists that can be trusted to simply give the facts rather, they abuse their positions of power for their own self interests.

They certainly don't serve the people well and are very strong in moving this country toward socialism and perhaps dictatorship if all three houses are dominated by one party.

[Ryan]

I can totally remember in 1980 here in Washington State, driving to the polling place after work for my first-ever chance to vote, and hearing Carter concede over the radio. Sometimes, living on the West Coast sucks.

[Tom Wolper]

One factor you left out is early voting. Voters in Oregon no longer care when the polls close or when the media call a winner because that state votes by mail. And as the trend seems to be for more states to encourage early voting, the late hours of election day will be less significant.

A complicating factor in down-the-ticket races is that the national parties identify toss-up races quickly and put resources into those races to make sure voters are aware of them regardless of the top race. The parties monitor the polls and if a race presents an opportunity late, they will move money there for last minute ads. A local politician can't blame the top of the ticket for losing him/her a close race.

[Jason]

Amazing, Linda, how ethics has suddenly come to mean "agreeing with one particular point of view."

Socialism and dictatorship? How I remember the heady days of Republican "dictatorship" in the aftermath of the Contract With America.

Oh, wait. That's right. The country continued to work even though one party controlled both houses of congress and the White House.

I weep for our country, that it's populated with so many people on both sides who can't have an open dialogue about the issues, but fall back to ridiculous demagoguery.

I'm looking at you, Linda.

[Scott]

This is exactly why I love Oregon's system of mail-in ballots. My wife and I voted last Thursday and dropped our ballots off at an official drop site on Saturday. The networks can call the election at 5:00:01pm PT on Tuesday for all I care.

[Mike]

I don't think west coast turnout should be a problem for the Democrats this year, with the enthusiasm level for Obama off the charts, not to mention several incendiary ballot proposals in California, it is the Republicans who should be worried their voters will stay home and help the Democrats rack up huge margins in the House and Senate.

[Mom In Latteland]

All you Obamatons can stay home if you like. Regardless of projections, I believe that most of the voters who are supporting McCain recognize that being an informed voter means more than just voting for the top of the ticket! We'll be out on election day supporting local candidates.

[Katharine]

I remember standing in line to vote in Oregon and hearing Carter had conceded. I voted for Anderson to at least help him get national funds, but I felt my vote was wasted. This year, in Oregon, I voted by mail long ago, and am hoping to hear as soon as possible that it is Obama.