The 2000 Florida election-night debacle—calling it for Gore, retracting, calling for Bush, retracting—was caused by a combination of erroneous data feeds, a data-entry error behind the Bush call, and an exit poll too close to have been called; since then networks have staffed decision desks with inside and outside experts and made no state-level miscall.

causalpending

Speaker

Doug Rivers

Evidence Quote

there were series of problems one of which were erroneous data feeds... the call in Florida in 2000 the one for Bush that shouldn't have been made... was due to a data entry error

Source

Doug Rivers on polling 7/21/2008EconTalk
Created: 6/15/2026, 9:28:54 AM

My Notes

Loading notes...