blunder, or forecast?

Adam Powell apowell at freedomforum.org
Thu Nov 5 05:43:55 PST 1998


Once again the Net had it first, this time by accident...

http://www.freedomforum.org/technology/1998/11/4abc.asp

ABC News election-eve Net 'mistake'
                  accurately predicted most close races 

                  By Adam Clayton Powell III
                  World Center 

                  11.4.98

                  It did not happen, but just imagine if it had:

                  The night before Fox television aired the World Series,
the Fox Web site posts
                  a complete set of inning-by-inning box scores for the 
upcoming
                  Yankees-Padres games. After leaving the results online for
a while, Fox pulls
                  them down and says it was all a big mistake.

                  Then the Yanks and the Padres play the Series, and nearly
90% of the innings
                  show the same scoring as in the "mistake" posting.

                  Sports fans, reporters and bookies would all cry foul, right?

                  Now consider what happened this week:

                  On Monday night, ABC News accidentally posted complete state-by-state
                  election results on its Web site, hours before any votes
were cast yesterday.
                  ABC withdrew the numbers by mid-evening Monday, saying they were all a
                  mistake and a test of their systems.

                  "It wasn't our finest hour," Michelle Bergman, manager of
communications for
                  ABCNews.com, told the Associated Press yesterday.

                  And, indeed, in the days before each national election,
the major national news
                  organizations hold "rehearsals" for reporting election night, using "dummy"
                  numbers.

                  Or maybe ...

                  With almost all election districts reporting, those "phony" ABC News test
                  numbers on Monday accurately matched the outcomes of the
Senate and
                  governor races in 61 of the 70 contests ^× 87%. It would be
difficult to find a
                  political analyst, pundit or bookie who even came close.

                  While every major analyst on Sunday was predicting the Republicans would
                  pick up anywhere from one to four Senate seats this week,
ABC's test
                  numbers on Monday had it right on the money: a 55-45 GOP-Democrat split,
                  for no net change.

                  Even more remarkable, in some of the most closely watched
contests, ABC News 
                  election eve "test" numbers matched the final vote count
almost precisely ^× 
                  within one percentage point.

                  In the Florida governor's race, Jeb Bush beat Buddy MacKay
by 55% to 45% ^×
                  the exact final result rehearsed by ABC News on Monday. In Texas, Jeb's
                  brother George won by 69% to Mauro's 30% ^× the very result 
used in the ABC
                  rehearsal on Monday.

                  ABC News rehearsal numbers also matched the exact final
results, to within
                  one percentage point, of the governors' races in Alabama,
Colorado, Wisconsin
                  and Wyoming.

                  All told, ABC's "error" had the correct candidates winning
the governors
                  mansions in 32 of 36 elections yesterday. The only gubernatorial contests
                  where ABC had the wrong candidate winning were in Hawaii,
Iowa, New Mexico
                  and Minnesota, where few predicted Reform Party candidate 
Jesse Ventura
                  would be the new governor.

                  In the Senate elections, ABC's test numbers matched the
winners in 29 of 34
                  contests, including all of the major races. ABC on Monday
had posted "WIN"
                  indicators next to Boxer, Schumer, Fitzgerald, Murray and
Hollings, all of whom
                  won close races in California, New York, Illinois, Washington and South
                  Carolina, respectively.

                  ABC also had the correct result in Wisconsin. The final vote totals this
                  afternoon showed Russ Feingold narrowly won reelection by
38,410 votes. On
                  Monday, ABC's rehearsal numbers showed Feingold winning
reelection by a
                  margin of 39,000 votes.

                  But ABC is not claiming these numbers were the result of
any new forecasting
                  models or special analysis.

                  "It was completely random," Bergman told free! this
afternoon.


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