Election Day

By Michael Kinsley

DEMOCRATIC NATIONAL COMMITTEE CHAIRMAN RON Brown was beaming as he bounced into the CNN Washington bureau (where I work part time). And rightly so. It was midafternoon on Election Day, and exit polls showed that Bill Clinton was going to win big. But before going on-air, Brown sobered up. "I'd better not seem too happy," he said. "The polls are still open." Brown soon appeared on TV screens around the world expressing cautious optimism to an interviewer who knew as well as Brown did that the result was a foregone conclusion.

Bush deputy campaign director Mary Matalin was interviewed on CNN a few minutes after Brown. Her eyes said it was all over, but her mouth soldiered on. Reports of high voter turnout were very encouraging for hopes of a Bush upset, she insisted.

The drama that had you glued to your TV the evening of Nov. 3 was a fraud perpetrated by a vast conspiracy. Virtually everyone you saw on-screen -- reporters, analysts, candidates and their handlers -- knew what everyone else was waiting to hear, yet pretended ignorance. Not just that Clinton would win, but by what margin in which states. And the Senate and governorship results too. All available at the punch of a computer button hours before they were reported to viewers.

The New York Times editorialized afterward that "the four networks deserve unstinting praise for threading a careful path between sensationalism and censorship." In fact, election-night broadcasts were an orgy of both vices, as all the networks generated false tension while suppressing the very information that would dissipate it.

And why? Because otherwise sane people believe -- against all logic -- that it somehow undermines democracy to project the result of an election before some people have voted. The networks are not to blame. Under pressure from Congress and sundry goody-goodies, they have agreed not to "characterize the outcome" in any state until the polls (the real polls) have closed in that state. This hasn't satisfied some Westerners, who complain about announced results from the East before polls have closed in the West.

This year all four networks called the Clinton victory at 10:48 p.m. Eastern time -- 7:48 p.m. in the West where polls closed at 8 p.m. -- thereby denying Westerners 12 precious minutes during which to vote in ignorance. Meanwhile, newspapers -- including the New York Times -- had hit the streets as early as 10:30 p.m. with CLINTON VICTORY headlines.

Self-censorship inevitably blurs into outright deception as network anchors pretend the race hasn't been decided. "The only way Bush can win now is by carrying states X, Y and Z," they say, knowing full well that Bush can't carry states X, Y and Z and cannot win even if he does. Or they drop little hints of the true outcome -- "The smell of change is in the air tonight, Peter" -- as if these insights derive from years of experience and exquisitely sensitive journalistic nostrils rather than from cold, hard numbers on a computer screen in front of them.

The exit polls do provide a way of hint dropping: "While we don't yet know who will carry Georgia, Dan, it's interesting to note that Clinton is running strongly there among people both under and over five foot six." Or they provide grist for tautological insights: "People who say that Bill Clinton reminds them of Jack the Ripper seem to be voting against Clinton in large numbers tonight, Tom."

What's the point? I have news for people voting late in the evening on the West Coast. It is virtually certain that the election result is settled by the time you vote. This is true whether or not that result is reported on TV. In fact, even those, like me, who voted early in the morning on the East Coast could do so with confidence that the election result would be determined despite our particular vote, if not before it.

But if reporting the result on TV leads people not to vote, however nutty their reason, isn't that a bad thing? Well, even studies purporting to show that early reporting reduces voter turnout don't claim that this affects the actual result -- in the main race or in subsidiary contests. And that's only logical. Why should knowing the outcome discourage voters for the loser more than voters for the winner, or vice versa? High voter turnout is desirable for its own sake, I suppose. But surely, deceiving people into exercising their right to vote is high-mindedness gone badly astray.

Some argue that exit polls shouldn't be reported because they may be wrong. But aren't other citizens able to handle this possibility as well as the journalists and politicos? The main difference between exit polls and other polls is that exit polls are more likely to be accurate. Fear that they are right, not fear that they are wrong, is what upsets people.

The New York Times recommends "extending daylight time for two weeks in the West," keeping East Coast polls open until 9 p.m. and requiring Western polls to shut at 7 p.m. The aim of this Rube Goldberg contrivance would be a uniform poll closing. Thus, to save Westerners from the alleged danger of a devalued vote at, say, 7:30 p.m., they will be denied the right to vote that late at all. And even this won't solve the censorship problem, since the networks know the results long before the polls actually close.

I have a better idea. Why don't we grow up? Voting is an act of democratic faith. You do it even though you know that elections are never determined by one vote. If you can't stand the thought that your vote doesn't "matter" in that sense, you'd better not vote at any hour in any time zone.