Voter News Service

The members of Voter News Service, an election consortium whose data were used by several news organizations in making wrong calls in last year's presidential election, have decided to keep the organization together and revamp its operations. The six member news organizations--ABC, NBC, CBS, CNN, Fox and Associated Press--had given themselves a June 1 deadline to decide whether to remain in the cooperative or opt out, members of the organization said. They said that all have decided to stay in.

The hunt for the Democrats' 2004 presidential candidate isn't the only anticipated process finally getting underway today with the Iowa caucuses. For the broadcast and cable news networks, it's also the first full-fledged "live" test of a new polling and vote-count operation that they hope will save them from the embarrassment of election night 2000.

In voting to spare the life of Voter News Service, media executives said Friday that the polling service's computer system will be upgraded and redesigned in the hope of avoiding a repeat of November's embarrassing election-night errors. The news service, a consortium of ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN, Fox News Channel and Associated Press, also will try to figure out a way to assess the effect of the increased amount of absentee and early voting, officials said.

After election night failures in 2000 and 2002, Voter News Service, the media consortium providing vote tabulation and exit polling data from across the country, has been voted out of existence by its board. The six major news organizations that fund VNS -- Associated Press, ABC News, CBS News, CNN, the Fox News Channel and NBC News -- said Monday that the consortium was being dissolved.

In the television networks' fierce quest to be over-prepared and competitive on election night, some discovered they can make do without Voter News Service, the consortium of broadcast and print news organizations that provides exit polling information from across the country.

NBC News and Fox News Channel said separately that they are contemplating not renewing their contracts with Voter News Service, the network and Associated Press exit polling consortium that has been partly blamed for the bad vote projections by all TV networks on election night. Member dissatisfaction isn't the only problem facing VNS; both the Federal Trade Commission and the Federal Communications Commission have been asked to look into the polling organization.

Voter News Service interviewed voters in the Arizona Republican primary as they left the polls. As a result, these numbers do not reflect absentee votes. The table below shows how various groups divided their votes among the candidates. For example: of all male voters, 31% voted for Steve Forbes, 31% for Patrick J. Buchanan and 28% for Bob Dole.

Deep in our history, before electronic communication, news sometimes arrived too late, as when Andrew Jackson and his men killed 2,000 British troops at New Orleans on Jan. 8, 1815, two weeks after the Treaty of Ghent "ended" the war they were fighting. But ever since Dewey defeated Truman, it has been the habit of news to arrive too soon, whether by a few hours or a few days.

The hunt for the Democrats' 2004 presidential candidate isn't the only anticipated process finally getting underway today with the Iowa caucuses. For the broadcast and cable news networks, it's also the first full-fledged "live" test of a new polling and vote-count operation that they hope will save them from the embarrassment of election night 2000.

After election night failures in 2000 and 2002, Voter News Service, the media consortium providing vote tabulation and exit polling data from across the country, has been voted out of existence by its board. The six major news organizations that fund VNS -- Associated Press, ABC News, CBS News, CNN, the Fox News Channel and NBC News -- said Monday that the consortium was being dissolved.

In the television networks' fierce quest to be over-prepared and competitive on election night, some discovered they can make do without Voter News Service, the consortium of broadcast and print news organizations that provides exit polling information from across the country.

Deep in our history, before electronic communication, news sometimes arrived too late, as when Andrew Jackson and his men killed 2,000 British troops at New Orleans on Jan. 8, 1815, two weeks after the Treaty of Ghent "ended" the war they were fighting. But ever since Dewey defeated Truman, it has been the habit of news to arrive too soon, whether by a few hours or a few days.

Voters and candidates anxious for early results from Tuesday's elections were left hanging like chads when a key system used to predict winners broke down. As a result, a nation accustomed to hearing the television networks predict winners as soon as the polls close was forced to do something unusual in the age of instant information: wait for ballots to be counted.

In voting to spare the life of Voter News Service, media executives said Friday that the polling service's computer system will be upgraded and redesigned in the hope of avoiding a repeat of November's embarrassing election-night errors. The news service, a consortium of ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN, Fox News Channel and Associated Press, also will try to figure out a way to assess the effect of the increased amount of absentee and early voting, officials said.

The members of Voter News Service, an election consortium whose data were used by several news organizations in making wrong calls in last year's presidential election, have decided to keep the organization together and revamp its operations. The six member news organizations--ABC, NBC, CBS, CNN, Fox and Associated Press--had given themselves a June 1 deadline to decide whether to remain in the cooperative or opt out, members of the organization said. They said that all have decided to stay in.

CBS News, releasing results of its investigation into what went wrong with its four bad election-night vote projections, said it accepted responsibility but pinned much of the blame on errant data from Voter News Service, some of which was provided erroneously to the exit polling service by states themselves. CBS said it also relied in some cases on too little information. And in the case of its projection of Florida for Gov. George W.

Voters and candidates anxious for early results from Tuesday's elections were left hanging like chads when a key system used to predict winners broke down. As a result, a nation accustomed to hearing the television networks predict winners as soon as the polls close was forced to do something unusual in the age of instant information: wait for ballots to be counted.

CBS News, releasing results of its investigation into what went wrong with its four bad election-night vote projections, said it accepted responsibility but pinned much of the blame on errant data from Voter News Service, some of which was provided erroneously to the exit polling service by states themselves. CBS said it also relied in some cases on too little information. And in the case of its projection of Florida for Gov. George W.

NBC News and Fox News Channel said separately that they are contemplating not renewing their contracts with Voter News Service, the network and Associated Press exit polling consortium that has been partly blamed for the bad vote projections by all TV networks on election night. Member dissatisfaction isn't the only problem facing VNS; both the Federal Trade Commission and the Federal Communications Commission have been asked to look into the polling organization.

Voter News Service interviewed voters in the Arizona Republican primary as they left the polls. As a result, these numbers do not reflect absentee votes. The table below shows how various groups divided their votes among the candidates. For example: of all male voters, 31% voted for Steve Forbes, 31% for Patrick J. Buchanan and 28% for Bob Dole.