If you're into elections & want to watch results on election night you should never watch them on TV

[kpete]

Something came home to me last night that I’ve realized for a while but crystalized for me in a new way. If you’re into elections and want to watch results on election night you should never watch them on TV. Ever. If you were watching last night’s election on TV you probably had the sense the race was a close run thing with the lead bouncing back and forth, with Herschel Walker possibly mounting a comeback after weeks of coverage that made Raphael Warnock appear a favorite to win a full term. If you watched the results through my curated Twitter feed of election number crunchers, though, you saw something very different: from the very first returns it looked likely and then with growing clarity that the results would roughly bear out the polls which showed Warnock with modest but significant lead. The final results this morning show Warnock beating Walker by just shy of three percentage points, almost on the dot of what the consensus of polls predicted.

...................

Which brings us to the question: why is the TV coverage so bad?

First, is the simple need for drama. There’s an obvious need to keep it interesting. Second though is that the details are kinda technical. I don’t have either the statistical training or the knowledge of political geography to do what these professional election analysts and number crunchers do. But I know enough to understand and interpret what they’re saying. That takes a fair amount of experience as a consumer of political news. Thats just not a mass market thing. You cant just port that stuff easily to TV. It would be hard to follow. In some cases incomprehensible to most people. It wouldn’t make for good TV. You would need to adapt it. And while there’s been some of that. It’s just not there yet. For now, it’s a specialist, a political junky kind of thing.

So if that’s you, if you’re into politics and basically conversant in it, don’t watch any of it on TV on election night.

https://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/save-your-brain-dont-watch-tv-on-election-night

[snowybirdie]

1. Turned on MSNBC

last night around 9 pm. The panel was giggling and laughing and generally having fun. I saw Walker was ahead in votes but figured they all knew something they weren't telling us and Warnach would win. So turned it off. My instincts were correct. They knew and didn't disclose til an hour or so later. Just milking time for revenue and commercial time.

[hlthe2b]

2. Well, I've been known to convey a little snark toward Kornacki, but to his credit,

he really set up the likely scenario and sequencing well last night but you had to be paying attention. Knowing that early and mail-in vote would cause an early strong shift to Dems, but then as counties varying in their R make-up began to report same-day voting--especially the rural counties, then a long period of back and forth for the lead between Wornack and Walker was to be expected and which would only stabilize to Wornack after the big Atlanta area counties (especially DeKalb, Fulton, and Gwinnett) finalized their totals, which would come relatively late in the process.

It played out exactly that way so many here who'd heard that or knew that remained pretty calm.

[asiliveandbreathe]

4. Those who were calm, had to come to the rescue of those who I was fearful would

jump out of their skin..so many here, were helping by explaining the dynamics of the Atlanta GA area..and their voter results schedule..

We started to watch the Lakers game..checked in (MSNBC) every once in a while, and ultimately settled in to watch Transformers..

I jokingly kept telling hubby..Steve Kornie could just push any GA county button on his big board and end this whole charade..but the ADS, oh my,

[EarlG]

3. Hard agree

Everyone likes to complain about horse-race politics, but the cable news election night horse race is the dumbest, most artificial thing ever. It drives me nuts the way pundits discuss the election like a sporting event after the polls have closed.

For hours, we're treated to gems like, "What does candidate X need to do to pull ahead?" and, "What does candidate Y have to do to close the gap?" Well, the answer is NOTHING. The polls have closed, there is absolutely nothing more that the candidates can do to change anything. The votes will be tallied, and the candidate with the most votes at the end will win.

The artificiality of the election night horse race simply comes down to the timing of when votes are counted and reported. As individual counties report at different times, it allows cable news pundits to treat the count like a sporting event -- like two teams moving back and forth across a football field. Candidate X is on Candidate Y's 40 yard line! But now Candidate X has fumbled and Candidate Y has regained control of the ball!

But that's Not. What. Is. Happening. There's simply a giant bucket of votes, and when they're all counted, you get a result. Once the polls have closed, the contest is over.

That's not to say that all the incoming data is useless. For example, it's *interesting* to know whether candidates are exceeding or failing to reach their target numbers in individual counties. But while it may be interesting to politically-aware viewers, that data is really most useful for campaigns to pore over after the fact, in order to better inform their next campaign in the state. When all is said and done, those votes have identical weight to all the others.

It's particularly awful when the count goes on for a few days. I got really irritated when for days while the AZ Gov race was being tallied, pundits wouldn't shut up about "What does Katie Hobbs have to do now to get across the finish line?"

NOTHING you twits! She already did everything she could! The votes are being counted and when they've finished being counted, we'll know who won!

/end rant

(Edited to add, I don't watch Fox News, but between MSNBC and CNN I've found CNN to be the worst offender. I'm not typically bothered by Jake Tapper but I find his election night reporting unbearable to watch.)

[hlthe2b]

5. So true...

[SheilaAnn]

6. I think those final numbers came in much earlier than MSNBC indicated, but they wanted the drama

until 11 pm to keep eyes on their station. Didn't fool me for a sec and I switched over to watch another episode of "The Crown." Now, that is real drama..LOL.