If you're a politics news junkie, Dem-Repub-or-Independent, if you're a supporter of Coakley or of Brown, be on guard. Better prepare yourself for tonite's "jump the gun" call by TV news anchors for either candidate in the MA-Senate race.
The AP playbook for summing up the vote counts –in the last 4 election cycles– relies on unofficial phone or fax reporting from unnamed volunteers.
The practice, shockingly undocumented, is described, in a writeup '(MA) 1/2010 - LOOKING OUT FOR PREMATURE "CALLING" OF MASS. ELECTION - SHINING A BRIGHT LIGHT ON AN UNDEMOCRATIC TACTIC'
The public doesn't know that projected winners come from a system that is not even a governmental source.
In fact, the media "calls" elections based on data from just one media outlet -- usually a quiet little division of the Associated Press.... Volunteers call in result reports to the corporation.
The reports are often inaccurate (see below for examples). The names of these volunteers are not part of the public record. We will never get the list of names for those who will call in the 351 (municipalities tally) numbers which will result in "calling the election" for Tuesday's Massachusetts election.
Reporting on election night is explained in a story at the blackboxvoting site and written by Bev Harris. Link is above. (I know, I know, she is not a popular fixture at this site. And I do not care.) The source site has a policy that you can quote it fully and liberally, providing you attribute it to its origin. With that policy, I paste liberally below.
The report picks up numerous instances where the volunteer callers phoned in "zero" counts for 1 candidate in precincts where they were favored. The NY Times documented the 0-bama votes in Harlem precincts in the '08 primary. - also covered at bradblog.
The Impact
HOW THE MEDIA "CALL" MAY ULTIMATELY CONTROL POLICY
If Tuesday's Massachusetts special senate election is "called" for Democrat Martha Coakley, expect to see a rush to install her, copying a Republican tactic in 2006 whereby San Diego's Brian Bilbray was seated by the US House of Representatives before tens of thousands of votes were even counted. ....
If the race is "called" for Republican Scott Brown, expect to see a rush from Republican lawyers to claim that Brown has the right to vote immediately, instead of Paul Kirk who is current interim successor to Ted Kennedy.
If that fails, look for an attempt to force abstention on the Massachusetts vote while stall tactics play out.
If you're concerned about a strongarm effort by Republicans to play it forward or skip the cross-checks and official report periods, you've a right to be. Do you remember the Brooks Brothers riot of 2000?
There's of course a rush to send in reinforcements from out-of-state. 4 caravans of GOP operatives and College Republicans, from Macomb Michigan, drove the interstates last week to relocate to Massachusetts. See the report. The original news report was from the Macomb Daily Saturday.
From blackboxvoting.org -
Yes, the Senate can override the actual election results, or pre-empt the real results, and pre-emptively install a candidate based on a media prediction, or a bunch of unofficial tallies. ....
Sixty votes are needed. If Coakley is called and installed, they've got the 60. If Brown is called and stalled, they've got 59. Either way, the media "call" on Massachusetts is going to be under exceptional political pressure.
No matter where you stand on the controversial healthcare bill, be aware that what you see reported on Election Night is not only not "official" or "final", but is not even real, and may not even be the numbers written down by poll workers or printed out by the voting machine.
ISSUING FALSE NUMBERS TO THE MEDIA TO CREATE A FALSE "CALL"
In a remarkable 2-sided, balanced piece, Harris recounts the zero tallies that understated Hoffman's (NY-23) numbers and likewise for Obama in 2008. Even if neither of these instances overrode the final official outcome, the false info skews initial impressions and out-of-the-gate calls.
There's at least 1 race where history was changed by unofficial numbers — numbers that were reversed, but only after one of the most famous concessions of an election on the record. (In this instance, AP was one outlet that doubted the initial numbers, but the networks swallowed them up.)
It's highlighted in a little noted pg. 15A column in USA Today, about a tally from a single precinct that subtracted 16,022 votes in a County report on election night.
The rest is history.
[Alternate->> similar link]
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Screen capture of USA Today article abstract link, here it is >>
Date of columnist's byline Nov. 29, 2000
Although Dana Milbank of WaPo had picked up 2 weeks earlier in a print piece about the 10:30 p.m. Volusia vote anomaly (p. A22), I don't think he realized it was the tipping point on Election Night.
Milbank may never have read the post-mortem [PDF] for the broadcast news Election Night reporting, CBS document. See pp. 20-21, also the 2 pieces of chronology at 2:16 a.m.
Anyway, sounds like Macomb-imported players and teams are lawyering up. Probably both sides are.