POL 401 Lecture Notes - Lecture 12: Msnbc
10 Dec 2016
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Document Summary
Uncertainty and bias in election night calling. Previous research has found that early election-night projections can have a depressing effect on turnout in presidential elections. Although this effect has been found to be small in the past, it may be enough to sway state outcomes and, potentially, the final outcomes of close presidential and other elections. On election night, all the networks have access to the same preelection polling data, exit-poll data, and precinct returns,3 yet make state-by-state projections at, in some cases, widely varying times. Focus on exit polls, early projections, and last minute political programming. Such studies point to a subtle media effect that includes, in certain circumstances, a depression of voter turnout that may not have affected outcomes. In both 2000 and 2004, it would have taken only 1 percent of the vote in a few states to change the tides of history, and studies find that the early and inaccurate calls in.
