Election Officials Concerned About TV Projections Major Networks Say They Will Abide By Long-Standing Policy
Months of campaigning come to an end today for candidates running for everything from president to precinct committee officer.
Voters go to the polls starting at 7 a.m. in Washington, but state and local election officials are worried that before the polls close at 8 p.m., the winner of the presidential race will be announced on nationwide television.
The major television networks have said they will abide by their long-standing policy of not projecting any race before the polls close in that state.
But when they believe that one of the presidential candidates has the needed 270 Electoral College votes, they will announce the winner.
“Our problem is they will be projecting as soon as the polls close, based on exit polling, not actual results,” said David Brine, a spokesman for Washington Secretary of State Ralph Munro.
There is no concrete data that prove an early projection of the presidential winner depresses voter turnout, Brine said. But Munro says he believes it has some effect, based on reports of the flow of voters turning to a trickle after a presidential winner is announced.
Several years ago, Washington state tried unsuccessfully to block exit polling through an injunction. But the courts ruled that exit polling does not constitute “electioneering,” which is prohibited within 300 yards of the entrance to a voting place.
Seven precincts in Spokane County will have representatives of Voter News Service, which conducts exit polls around the country for the networks and wire services.
Spokane County Auditor Bill Donahue said pollsters choose the precincts based on their similarities to the overall voting patterns in previous elections.
County Elections Supervisor Tom Wilbur estimated that four out of five Spokane voters will cast ballots today if historic trends hold.
More than 33,000 absentee ballots have been mailed out or punched in the elections office this year - a record, Wilbur said. More than 16,000 had been returned as of Monday afternoon.
Spokane County election results will be posted as they become available on the Internet.
The county will post them on its Web page at http://www.spokanecounty.org, and The Spokesman-Review will post local returns, as well as regularly updated state and national results, on Virtually Northwest at http://www.VirtuallyNW.com at its Election Central link.
Voters who want to skip the networks’ commentators and do their own projections can get national results courtesy of the networks.
CNN and Time Magazine will be posting results at http://www.allpolitics.com/ and ABC and The Washington Post will have numbers available at http://politicsnow.com/.
For those who just want a verbal update by phone, there’s The Spokesman-Review’s election hotline on Cityline.
Call 458-8800 on a Touch-Tone phone, then press 9494 for a list of options to hear results of different races.
, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: Graphic: Election results