Did the Media call the Vote for Aunold before Polling Places Closed?

[KoKo]

Since I stopped watching all coverage last night and refused to even watch DU reports last night, I wonder if the election was called before the vote was in.

I know that the cables were non-stop coverage all day yesterday, with much more coverage of Aunold than the other candidates, and I thought that was a violation of some election rule.
Does anyone think there is a violation of some law here? Or, were the cables and networks pretty low key?

BTW: Who handled the exit polling. Since VNS was dropped by the networks and the Mid-Term Elections didn't seem to have exit polling, I wondered if there was any last night and, if so, who was in charge of the polling results?

[KoKo]

1. Does anyone out there know? Hello.......?????

:eyes:

[fizzana]

2. They were virtually calling it before the polls opened.

n/t

[glarius]

11. On CNN all day they went to Candy Crawley at Davis hdqtrs with her sad

face saying "they're not very hopeful around here" and then they would go to Arnold hdqtrs where Judy Woodruff was all bubbly and upbeat about how they were expecting to win....You think that doesn't have an influence on the vote???....disgusting

[Maine-i-acs]

3. August 6th

It was basically called then, as Arnie hogged all the media time since then.

Issues? What issues?

[KoKo]

4. There's a lawsuit somewhere. Who will take it up. Media Interfered with

Election! Watch and see.....I think this is going to happen. If I had "connections" I would start one myself.

Surely there is a group or person of influence who is going to challenge this. If the networks called it before polls closed, and if someone clocked the coverage that Aunold was given compared to the other candidates.

[Muddleoftheroad]

5. I think that will lose out to freedom of the press

And it should.

[glarius]

7. We have a law in Canada (so do European countries) which forbids

TV networks from declaring a winner or saying who is leading during the voting day...Nothing can be announced till after the polls close...That is sensible and reasonable and FAIR!...How does that interfere with freedom of the press?...Does the press have the freedom to influence the outcome of elections by premature declarations of winners?....

[bearfartinthewoods]

8. i watched msnbc,and cnbc and fox

they all sat on their hands until the stroke of 8pm pacific but it was obvious from about 5pm on that they had seen exit polling.

i think there were at least two "slip-ups" in which talking heads called arnie covernor..one was judy woodruff. i didn't see either but read about them here.

[rocktivity]

6. The media called the vote for Arnold he day he announced he was running!

rocknation

WHERE’S OUR NINE BILLION DOLLARS, ARNOLD?

[Junkdrawer]

9. Drudge called it about 5 hours before the polls closed...

I and others complained, but there were several Drudge posts in LBN that were allowed to stand. Brokaw called it about 1/2 hour before polls closed and CNN called it at 11:00 PM eastern on the dot, although it was clear they were going to call it that way much earlier in the evening.

BTW: The Exit polls were done by Edison/Mitofsky Research.

Edison/Mitofsky Research: To assist CNN in collecting and evaluating this information, CNN has employed Edison Media Research (EMR) and Mitofsky International. In previous elections, Warren Mitofsky and Joe Lenski have assisted CNN in projecting winners in state and national races. Edison/Mitofsky will conduct exit polls, which ask California voters their opinion on a variety of relevant issues, determine how they voted, and ask a number of demographic questions to allow analysis of voting patterns by group.

Using exit poll results, vote results from the AP and a number of sophisticated analysis techniques, Edison/Mitofsky also project a winner for each race it covers. CNN will not use exit polls to make projections in close races. CNN will only use exit poll survey data to project a winner when that data indicates one of the candidates has a significant lead at the time that the polls close in that state.

http://www.cnn.com/ELECTION/2003/recall/pages/how.html

Also, see my latest post:

Has anyone here EVER been exit polled?

[Freddie Stubbs]

10. No. They waited until after the polls closed

Drudge leaked exit poll results on his site, as he usually does.