Media Politics : TV Again to Call Race Before Polls Close

In the age of electronics, information moves so quickly that sometimes events seem to recede instantly in importance, giving way to analysis or satire. Today’s presidential election might be one of those events.

Tonight, for instance, the situation comedy program “It’s Gary Shandling’s Show” will feature comedian Gary Shandling watching actual election returns live on TV. The election still going on becomes the backdrop for its own satirization.

And once again, many voters in California and throughout the West tonight may feel that the election for President has ended before they even get to vote.

The three major networks have promised under pressure from Congress not to project a winner tonight in any state until that state’s polls have closed. But since 80% of all Electoral College votes exist in Eastern and Central time zones, the networks will project who is the next President with hours of voting left on the West Coast.

Move on to Analysis

Just as they did in 1980 and 1984, the anchormen and correspondents will have moved on to analyzing the size of the winner’s mandate, his Cabinet and legislative agenda while many Californians are still headed for polling places.

Evidence, though inconclusive, suggests that these projections have no influence over voting behavior. But the controversy persists, and some contend that it is simply demoralizing and wrong that Westerners should know an election’s result before actually voting.

The best solution, they argue, is not arguing over the media’s influence but creating a uniform polling closing time nationwide. So far Congress has failed to pass such a law.

The dispute concerns the extraordinary accuracy of network exit polls, which provide crucial data about who voted, where and why but also allow the networks to know before anyone else who will win.

“By this election,” said Rep. William M. Thomas (R-Bakersfield), “it will be literally possible (for the networks) to predict the outcome of an election by noon Eastern Standard Time.”

Angry Dispute in 1980

Network exit poll projections became the center of angry dispute in 1980, when the results figured in President Jimmy Carter’s concession an hour and a half before West Coast polls closed, and the controversy continued in 1984 when the three networks all called President Reagan’s reelection shortly after 5 p.m. PST.

According to news reports in 1980, citizens still waiting to vote abandoned polling lines after hearing that the presidential race had been decided. And some narrowly defeated local candidates cried foul.

“Clearly, many citizens will choose to stay home if they believe that their vote will not count,” Rep. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) said.

The Washington state Legislature even passed a bill banning exit polling on public property within 300 feet of a voting place. News organizations sued and won, striking down the law.

ABC News commissioned a University of Michigan study that found that early network projections might have reduced turnout from 6% to 12%. But subsequent research has put those findings in serious doubt.

‘No Systematic Effect’

And, as a review of the literature reported in the Journal of Public Opinion: “Studies going back to the 1964 election . . . have found that early evening projections have no systematic effect on turnout.”

Congress held hearings on the matter in 1985, and the networks promised not to use exit polls to predict winners in state elections until polls closed, but the problem of presidential elections remained.

The networks will follow a policy tonight of not projecting any states until the polls in those states close. But if the election is not close, the mounting number of state projections means that one of the candidates will likely have been dubbed the winner of the necessary 270 electoral votes an hour or more before California polls close.

“Those of us in the West worry very much about this,” Rep. Vic Fazio (D-Sacramento) said recently. “We have not fixed this problem.”

Quick Tally by Computers

Even if the networks do change their policy, however, technology may raise the problem another way. With computers, votes are getting counted so quickly that already “the technology is such that 45% of all votes cast are actually counted now before the polls close,” CBS polling director Warren Mitofsky said.

A growing number in Congress now believe that the best solution is not restricting the media, but changing polling laws. The House last year passed a bill that would close polls on the East Coast at 9 p.m., extend Daylight Savings Time on the West Coast by two weeks and close polls there at 7 p.m. But the bill died in the Senate last spring, largely because of resistance from rural legislators for whom tampering with Daylight Savings Time is a hot issue.

Thomas said he will reintroduce the bill next year if he thinks that this time the Senate will also pass it, and tonight’s events may well influence the debate.