A 2020 study from the Voting Rights Lab reported that 52% of respondents expect an election winner to be announced within three days of the election, and that results announced a week or more after the election would cause the majority of those polled to question the legitimacy of said results (Voting Rights Lab (2020); accessed from: Bergeron-Boutin et al., MIT Election Lab (2020)). In their search for a quick relaying of election results, the American people often turn to the mainstream media (e.g. CNN, CBS, ABC, FOX) and election night reporting which broadcasts results that are, as many politicians and members of the media are quick to tell you, are always unofficial projections and not necessarily representative of what the result will be after all of the votes are counted (Bipartisan Policy Center (2024)). While the media’s reporting of election results is not inherently misleading, issues can arise when those reported results are misunderstood as being more final and less unofficial than they really are; and these sorts of misunderstandings are not uncommon, with a survey conducted by the Pew Research Center in 2020 revealing that only 44% of the Americans polled were fully aware that the media projects the winner of each state when “they [the media] feel confident based on vote returns and other information” as opposed to projecting the winner when state officials have certified the results or when a specified critical percentage of votes in that state have been counted (Mitchell et al., Pew Research Center (2020)).
If you are thinking: “hm, I feel like expectations for quick election results could interfere with co-existing expectations for these quickly reported results to be accurate”, you are right.
In fact, the contestation of the U.S. Presidential Election of 2000 – an election that Thomas Mann, former Senior Fellow in Governance Studies at the Brooking Institution, a political research organization, described as an election that “no work of fiction could have possibly captured the extraordinary twists and turns [of]” (Thomas E. Mann, Brookings Institution (2001))– began, in many ways, with the overzealous and unverified reporting of Election Day results (David Folkenflik, National Public Radio Website (2020)).
Polls conducted in the lead up to the 2000 U.S. Presidential election indicated that the race would be exceptionally close, a side effect of many different factors: including the perceived differences in levels of charisma in the two major party candidates (the Vice President at the time, Al Gore, as the Democratic party’s candidate, and the then Governor of Texas George Bush as the Republican party’s candidate); the recent impeachment scandal in the Clinton administration and George W. Bush’s newly publicized DUI charges (Gary L. Gregg II, The University of Virginia Miller Center); and a general shift in both parties towards a less divisive and more moderate middle ground, which made it more likely that the division of votes in the 2000 election would sway away from the historical voting patterns of individual voters and state electorates. The confluence of these factors and more made it so the presidential race, in certain states, – Florida, for example, which would become the primary arena for the contestation of the election results – was exceptionally close and, therefore, more prone to being swayed by the miscounting of votes, issues with certain ballots, and the, albeit, small number of votes cast for third party candidates Ralph Nader and Pat Buchanan (Gerald M. Pomper, Political Science Quarterly (2001)).
Given the inconclusive results from pre-election day polls, it did not come as a surprise that the phrase “too close to call” was a common refrain heard during Election Day (Tuesday November 7th, 2000) broadcasts across the major news networks. But around 8 PM, the major networks, based on information from the Voters News Service (VNS) which was itself based on exit polls at polling places, reported a critical number of electoral votes (25) for Al Gore (Democrat) from the then un-declared state of Florida–-suggesting that a decisive conclusion to these indecisive election results was in sight. However, at around 9:31, members of George Bush’s (Republican) campaign, believing that the remaining votes that were still to be counted in Florida would cause the state to “flip” and be declared for Bush instead of Gore, implored Bush to publicly dispute the 8:00 PM declaration of Florida for Gore. Ostensibly in response to the claims made by Bush and his campaign, the networks that had originally called Florida for Al Gore retracted their previous statements and re-declared Florida as being “too close to call”. At around 2:30 AM on Wednesday November 8th, 2000, after receiving results from other states as well as updated results based on the 96% of votes that had been counted in Florida, the major networks declared the state of Florida and, with it, the Presidential Election for George Bush. Believing that the media reports were true, Al Gore almost immediately called Bush to concede and congratulate him on his win–a “sportsmanlike” move that, after being reported by the media the next day, proved to have important impacts on many people’s perceptions of the election results and the legitimacy of the later contestation of them. As Gore was on his way to publicly concede, more votes from Florida were counted, which diminished George Bush’s lead in the state by a critical margin, pushed the Florida results into the realm of uncertainty, and paved the way for contestation of the final election results (CNN “Bush v. Gore: ‘Too Close to Call'”, (2015); Chronology: November 7th- December 18th 2001 from “Bush v. Gore: The Court Cases and the Commentary on JSTOR” (2001), E.J Dionne and William Kristol ).
In the aftermath of these confusing, shifting, and indecisive media reports in the early hours of November 8th, the United States witnessed an unprecedented, contested election with great historical significance. While the media obviously had no direct role in deciding the final results of the election– which ended up being the product of a highly controversial Supreme Court Decision in which Gore’s requested recount of votes in Florida was halted, allowing George Bush to officially be declared as the winner of the 2000 Presidential Election (“Bush v. Gore: The Court Cases and the Commentary on JSTOR” (2001), E.J Dionne and William Kristol )— the confusion caused by their premature, unofficial declaration that Bush had won the election influenced many people’s perceptions of Al Gore, as it caused them to believe that Gore’s calls for a recounting of votes in Florida were the illegitimate attempts of a “sore-loser” to challenge Bush’s legitimate election win; a perception which, as proven by the willingness of the Florida State Legislature to recount votes as well as beliefs about the “true” results of the election held by both Republican and Democrat politicians involved in the election (CNN “Bush v. Gore: ‘Too Close to Call'”, (2015)), is largely if not wholly inaccurate (U.S. Congressional Hearing: Election Night Coverage By The Networks in 2000 (2001)).
Since the 2000 Election, the mainstream media has taken considerable action to prevent what happened on November 7th and 8th (2000) from happening again (U.S. Congressional Hearing: Election Night Coverage By The Networks in 2000 (2001)), but the race to be the first network to call the election continues to influence how these major news networks go about their Election Night Reporting (Daniel Okrent, The Brennan Center (2020)). While there are many, arguably more important, lessons to be learned from the 2000 Presidential Election that extend far beyond issues involving media coverage and how election results are reported (i.e. regarding the popular vote vs. the electoral college vote; voter disenfranchisement; discriminatory voting practices; and the scope of the Supreme Court’s power), it is important to, as we approach the 2024 Election, be reminded of the true unofficial nature of, what is, for many, the first election results that they hear.
Sources
(in order of first appearance)
Bergeron-Boutin et al., MIT Election Lab (2020)
Bipartisan Policy Center (2024)
Mitchell et al., Pew Research Center (2020)
Thomas E. Mann, Brookings Institution (2001)
David Folkenflik, National Public Radio Website (2020)
Gary L. Gregg II, The University of Virginia Miller Center
Gerald M. Pomper, Political Science Quarterly (2001)
CNN “Bush v. Gore: ‘Too Close to Call'”, (2015)
U.S. Congressional Hearing: Election Night Coverage By The Networks in 2000 (2001)
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