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| The Global Freedom Institute |
| Media Coverage: Election 2000 disaster. On election night 2000, the most of the media read their Voter News Service information and announced Al Gore as the winner of the Florida. They later changed Florida to undecided, and later to George W. Bush, before finally saying Florida was �too close to call.� When Al Gore was announced the winner, due to Florida being in two time zones, some of Florida hadn�t even closed their voting booths. Considering that Florida was one of the key battleground states, and other key states already being called, it would have been easy to think that Al Gore had won the election. What impact, if any, could those announcements have had on voters? The announcement could have kept people away from the polls in Florida in the counties in the Central Time Zone. Having heard that Bush lost, some republicans may have chosen to stay at home and not waste the time voting since their candidate had already �lost.� It may have kept some democrats away from voting because their candidate had already �won.� Considering the counties in the Central Time Zone of Florida are traditionally republicans, it probably hurt Bush more in Florida. It also may have had a national impact. If Bush was thought to have already lost, then would Bush supporters go out to vote nationally at the same rate they would have normally? Would the Gore voters have gone to vote as they normally would have? That set of numbers may be more even, but is something is also harder to speculate on because it is a much broader group of people. Another rarely discussed impact may be the impact on Al Gore�s votes nationally. A large number of Ralph Nader voters said if the election was close, they would vote for Gore. They would do so to prevent Bush from winning. This was so prevalent, some even tried to make deals for votes on web sites. They were willing to trade their Nader vote in one state for a Gore vote in another state. They wanted the best of both worlds in their mind. So if Gore was announced to be the winner of key states early, what impact might it have had one those voters? Could it mean that they would vote for Nader instead of Gore because of the announcement? With more than five states decided by 10,000 votes or less, potentially, the early announcement could alter the outcome in a state. Florida was the only state where it could have had in impact this time, due to New Hampshire�s time zone, however, there were several states where it was close, and with third parties starting to emerge, it is possible in the future to occur also. Consider that Ross Perot and Ralph Nader have received more third party coverage than has been seen in quite a while. The reality of today is the media can have a significant, even vote altering impact on an election, even on Election Day. The impact we normally expect is the bias of focus on one candidate over another or focus on a particular issue or �spin� of an issue, but the announcement of election results on Election Night can have a significant impact. The question should be: how do we fix it? There are two possibilities. First, making same time voting, which was proposed by every executive to go before the Congress to testify about the mistakes. Meaning that all the polls open and close at the same time. In doing this, because of the different time zones, there may have to be a 24-hour voting period. That means an East Coast voting place may be open from 5pm one night to 5pm the next. This would take care of the impact of announcing the results of one state while other states still vote. This would also eliminate calling a state before the polls close in that state, assuming announcements were not done prior to polls closing. However, this was not the case in Florida. The second possibility would be a decision to not announce any results until all states are done voting. The networks and news services should agree to do this by themselves through written contracts that have a heavy monetary penalty for violation of the agreement. It should be binding for the news groups and their affiliates. This is an unlikely probability, but should be encouraged by everyone from viewers, consumers, and government officials. However, it should not be governmentally mandated for First Amendment reasons. Though it is possible to justify it does not violate the First Amendment, we do not support unnecessary government action, especially if it may violate the Constitution. It would be preferable to see both possibilities together, of course, to minimize any impact of those results. One or the other would address the issue adequately, but both would ensure the possibility of any early results that may impact their own state or another state would not happen. Either way, the voting process is vital to ensure the maintenance of representative democracy in America. If it is skewed, it risks democratic practices as a whole, and its legitimacy. Allowing the current practices to continue in this area, could be a loophole for someone or some group to negatively impact the election process. We always assume the media will not impose an agenda or a view in such a negative way on a seemingly �sacred� process, however, it should not be assumed. With all of the election law �stretches� that occurred in 2000, it should not be put beyond anyone. --GFI 2/14/01 Return to Main Page |
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