First Glitch In US Elections – Exit Polls Fail

Voter News Service exit polls will not be used in presentation of the 2002 US mid-term election results tonight due to vote analysis problems.

VNS – a consortium of ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN, FOX and the Associated Press – will still be used to count the actual national vote however.

Exit poll data is usually used by the US Television networks to predict election results, and crucially, to comment on why people voted as they did.

In a statement issued this afternoon NZT (Tuesday evening US Time - see below for text) VNS said that it was having problems with a recently overhauled computer system.

Although VNS is still able to collect exit poll data, it is the lack of the demographic analysis which makes news networks weary of using VNS information today, reports say.

During the 2000 presidential election, TV networks were shamed when they broadcast incorrect Florida voting results based on erroneous VNS data.

(See also the VNS statement…Voter News Service Statement - Exit Poll Breakdown)

(Coverage of the US election results continuing…)

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