What happened on election night to cause the networks to repeatedly mis-predict the outcome in Florida has now become obvious.
On election day, exit interviews were conducted in selected representative precincts; based on those interviews, the networks predicted a Gore victory in Florida.
When the actual votes in these selected precincts were counted and compared to the results from the exit interviews, serious discrepancies were found. The networks immediately switched Florida back to undecided. We now know why: many thousands of votes intended for Gore were either thrown out or went to Pat Buchanan.
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As more votes came in from these precincts and Bush's false lead grew, the networks pronounced him the victor. The problem was, the selected representative precincts didn't accurately predict the outcome of the other precincts because the other precincts had clear ballots. When these returns started coming in, the true closeness of the election became obvious. The networks again had to change their projections and announced that Florida, and thus the national election, was too close to call. The bottom line: the networks had it right in the first place. Al Gore has won Florida and so has also been elected President of the United States. |