Voter News Service scraps exit-poll plans
By The Associated Press
11.06.02
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NEW YORK — Voter News Service abandoned its state and national exit-poll plans for Election Night, saying it could not guarantee the accuracy of the analysis that news organizations use to help explain why people voted as they did.
The decision did not affect VNS' separate operation for counting the actual vote. VNS also hoped to offer limited information from the exit-poll surveys to give its members guidance in projecting winners for individual races.
Still, it was a major setback for VNS — a consortium consisting of ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN, Fox News and the Associated Press. VNS had completely rebuilt its system in response to the 2000 election, when television networks twice used its information to make wrong calls in the decisive Florida vote for the presidential election.
In the weeks heading up to Election Day, VNS was never able to work out the bugs in the portion of the exit poll used to glean detailed information on how people felt about issues and how certain groups voted.
VNS said the exit-poll information was being collected but not being properly analyzed by the organization's new computer system.
ABC News spokesman Jeffrey Schneider said the network had prepared for the possibility that VNS would not be ready on Election Night. It put the emphasis on "good, old-fashioned reporting" to tell what happened, he said.
"Everyone's disappointed not to have exit polls," Schneider said. "That said, the most important thing is ensuring that we put out accurate and reliable information."
Angered by the networks' performance in the 2000 election, Congress brought news organizations to Washington to explain their performance and was watching to see if there would be a repeat of difficulties this year.
Senate Minority Leader Trent Lott, notified of the VNS decision not to provide exit polls, said, "If they're not accurate, then I'm glad they went ahead and announced it."
Bill Wheatley, executive vice president of NBC News, said there was still a possibility that the exit-poll data would be available in the next few days. Meanwhile, NBC News and CBS News planned to use the results of their own joint poll of voter attitudes conducted last weekend using the same survey questions as VNS.
Wheatley said his network would look at VNS' additional exit-poll information for use in projections, "but unless we have a high degree of confidence in it, we won't be using it."
"All along, we said we were going to be extremely cautious tonight," he said.
CNN Chairman Walter Isaacson said his network would rely on political reporters across the country to provide texture for its coverage. "There is a good side to it, which is we'll have a great lesson in civics as people watch real votes being counted," he said.
Even though VNS was still providing exit-poll data to help the networks project winners, CBS News spokesman Sandra Genelius said, "We're not going to count on that information."
The exit poll was of particular importance to the 19 newspapers, including The New York Times, Washington Post and USA TODAY, which had contracted with the consortium to receive that information to report on Election Day trends.
VNS has a separate vote-counting operation that was also being put to the test last night. VNS members also had access to another vote-counting system set up by the Associated Press as a backup.
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