WASHINGTON — An internal investigation by the polling organization used by major television networks that twice called and then retracted the Florida presidential election found its own techniques risky and hampered by budget restrictions, the Washington Post said Friday.
The Post said a confidential report based on an internal investigation by the Voter News Service (VNS) found the organization had no reliable way of estimating the number of Florida's absentee ballots in the presidential race, and dramatically underestimated the number of Florida votes still uncounted at 2 a.m. Nov. 8, the morning after the election.
VNS, which was created in 1990 by the major networks and the Associated Press to save money on election night vote-projection operations, said its data this year in Florida was not reliable, leading to early estimates from the networks on election night that Vice President Al Gore had won the state, and indirectly the White House.
The Post reported the VNS investigation also determined its underestimation of the number of votes still uncounted in Florida caused networks to declare George W. Bush the winner of the contest early on the morning of Nov. 8.
Both the call for Gore and the later call for Bush were retracted, and the winner of Florida and the White House remained unknown for more than a month.
Networks were embarrassed by the mistaken election night calls, which the Post labeled "the biggest blunder in television history."
The newspaper report said VNS found that budget limitations placed heavy burdens on its staff, and "made the task of covering elections far more difficult than necessary."
Among the problems the Post cited in the VNS internal investigation was that the organization did no telephone polling in Florida to try to estimate the size of the absentee vote because of the "very considerable costs" involved.