Calling the Election

The time has come, it is election day! Even more than who wins the Presidency, I am curious to see the final voting turnout numbers. After a few decades of staggering American voting turnout rates, it looks like the American people are excited and motivated to be apart of the political process.

In an article on the day of the election, the New York Times talked about the coverage of the election. No longer will people be waiting until the next morning to check out the headlines of the paper to find out who came out on the top (like in the good ol' Truman vs Dewey days), but people will be watching simultaneous coverage of the electoral count as it unfolds.

The article discusses how the television media, specifically the major networks, will go about calling the election, especially with an early landslide being a possibility.

The article was really interesting, as it touched upon most of the major networks for comment. Since networks will be relying on slow official ballot counts from the state and unreliable exit polls, networks are wary of reliving something along the lines of Tribune's gaff with Truman and Dewey. Even still, in today's competitive market, these networks are battling each other to be the first to announce the next President of the United States. With key battleground states of Florida, Ohio, Virginia, Pennsylvania, and North Carolina all closing their polls early due to their eastern time zone, the networks could call the election by as early as 8 PM tonight.

Networks, publications, and online news mediums may have their fingers on the trigger, but don't expect these networks to pull a Tribune and declare Dewey the winner. When asked how Katie Couric will go about interpreting the polling data, Senior Vice President of CBS News Paul Friedman said it would be more along the lines of her reporting indications, such as “Given what we know about the results, or the projected results in various states, it’s beginning to look like it will be very difficult for John McCain to put together enough votes to win this election.”

Tune in soon to see how it unfolds.

The article can be found here.