Are the networks still allowed to call states before polls close?

[Nym90]

There is a lot of misinformation going around about what happened in Florida in 2000. Having twice read Jeff Greenfield's book "Oh Waiter, One Order of Crow" (highly recommended, probably the best all around book about the 2000 presidential election), I can fill you in on what happened, at least at CNN.

Florida was called for Gore at 7:50 PM, about 10 minutes before the polls in the panhandle closed. The reason it was called for Gore was because:

The exit poll from Florida had Gore ahead 52-48

Gore had a 5-6 point lead in Florida in most preelection polls in the state.

Sample precincts in Florida that were reporting were all showing Gore running almost as well as Clinton had in 1996 in the same precincts.

Those are the 3 criteria used to call a state. If the exit polls and preelection polls both show one candidate clearly ahead, the state is called as soon as the polls close. Otherwise, they wait for sample precincts to begin reporting, compare the returns to past returns in those precincts, and then go from there. (Precincts are randomly chosen across the state, and then both the percentages and turnout in those precincts is compared to past years)

Hence, the state was called for Gore. All of the available evidence suggested that he would win the state. Greenfield likened it to the Challenger disaster...the process of calling states had worked so flawlessly for so long that no one had any doubt that it would continue to perform well. It was the first time in history in a presidential race that a state, once called, had to be taken back. The only mistake that had ever been made was in the 1996 Senate race in New Hampshire.

The policy at the time was that no state would be called unless 75% of the polls in the state were closed. (That has been now modified into no state being called unless 100% of the polls are closed). And the panhandle and absentee ballots were being taken into consideration in the call, though part of what threw a monkey wrench into the predictions were that absentee ballots comprised 12% of the statewide total, up from 7% in 1996.

As for 1980, the networks did call it for Reagan early, but 1984, 1988, 1992, and 1996 were also all called before the polls on the West Coast closed. What really hurt the Dems that year was that Carter gave his official concession speech even before the polls on the West Coast closed. Since then, no candidate has conceded before 11 PM Eastern time.

[Nym90]

http://www.uselectionatlas.org/INFORMATION/ARTICLES/ElectionNight/pe2000elecnighttime.php

That should clear up any confusion about when states were actually called. Dave uses CBS's call times, but I think they were all pretty similar since they were all using the same data.

Greenfield explains in the book that the numbers they were getting were in some cases skewed towards Gore. Either the exit polls were a lot different than the preelection polls, (the unusually high number of absentee ballots in many states was a factor in skewing the results, the networks consider absentee ballots but also generally assume that the percentage of votes cast absentee will be about the same as the last election) or the sample precincts (they choose these at random across the state) were producing skewed results. I'm just hypothesizing here, but since Gore did very well in urban areas relative to his showing in rural areas, if the sample precincts were coming from urban areas they could have led the networks to believe Gore was doing better than he actually was; also unusually high turnout in some pro-Gore areas could also tilt the results.