Scooping the Voters? The Consequences of the Networks' Early Call of the 1980 Presidential Race

Abstract

The election projection of the 1980 presidential contest by NBC raised much speculation concerning its possible impact on voting in states where the polls were still open. Research on the subject has started from different assumptions, used different data and methods, and come to different conclusions concerning the real-world effects of such early calls. Using district-level voting and demographic data and focusing on deviations from normal voting patterns, this study finds the early call to have had a small but measurable impact on presidential and congressional turnout, and a somewhat larger impact on depressing the vote for Democratic candidates at both levels. In addition, higher income, white collar, and better educated populations appear to have been affected to a greater extent. While the overall impact was too small to have affected the outcome of the presidential race, at the congressional level as many as fourteen races were won by margins smaller than the estimated impact of the early call in those districts. Please contact the publisher regarding any further use of this work. Publisher contact information may be obtained at http://www.jstor.org/journals/spsa.html.Each copy of any part of a JSTOR transmission must contain the same copyright notice that appears on the screen or printed page of such transmission.JSTOR is an independent not-for-profit organization dedicated to creating and preserving a digital archive of scholarly journals. For more information regarding JSTOR, plea<;e contact support@jstor.org. The election projection of the 1980 presidential contest by NBC raised much speculation concerning its possible impact on voting in states where the polls were still open. Research on the subject has started from different assumptions, used different data and methods, and come to different conclusions concerning the real-world effects of such early calls. Using district-level voting and demographic data and focusing on deviations from normal voting patterns, this study finds the early call to have had a small but measurable impact on presidential and congressional turnout, and a somewhat larger impact on depressing the vote for Democratic candidates at both levels. In addition, higher income, white collar, and better educated populations appear to have been affected to a greater extent. While the overall impact was too small to have affected the outcome of the presidential race, at the congressionallevel as many as fourteen races were won by margins smaller than the estimated impact of the early call in those districts.

Exit Polls and Voter Turnout in the 2017 French Elections

“…These results give credit to theories of voting as an act which is, at least partially, strategic and instrumental, in contrast to theories of voting as a non-strategic decision motivated by civic duty or by a consumption benefit. A similar decrease in turnout has been found in the US in the 1980 elections, which were called in favor of Reagan while polling stations were still open in the Western states (Delli Carpini, 1984), as well as in the 2000 elections, when Florida was called in favor of Bush while polling stations were still open in the Panhandle counties (Lott, 2005). The results are also in line with , who show that in the French overseas territories, before the 2005 electoral reform, voting after exit polls from the mainland had been published decreased turnout by 11 percentage points.…”

¿Quién se expone a los sondeos preelectorales en campaña? Voto estratégico y competencia electoral en España (2011-2019)

“…Por un lado, se han valorado los efectos psicológicos de los sondeos preelectorales en la movilización o desmovilización de los electores en las campañas electorales (participación/abstención), especialmente en aquellas con alta volatilidad electoral o alta competencia entre partidos con similares niveles de intención de voto. Adicionalmente, los sondeos electorales pueden influir en la conversión de electores cuando las posibilidades del partido preferido son escasas, activando así los mecanismos de voto estratégico de los ciudadanos (Delli Carpini, 1984;Holtz-Bacha y Strömbäck, 2012;Muñoz y Mora, 2019).…”

“…La hipótesis principal establece que «la probabilidad de exponerse a los sondeos preelectorales será mayor en el caso de los votantes con dudas acerca de su decisión (votantes indecisos)». Tal y como hemos advertido en líneas anteriores, los votantes utilizan los sondeos preelectorales como una fuente de información de aquellos partidos o candidatos con mayor posibilidad de éxito electoral o de formar Gobiernos (Downs, 1957;Delli Carpini, 1984;Lavrakas et al, 1991;Holtz-Bacha y Strömbäck, 2012). En ese sentido, aquellos votantes con mayores dudas acerca de la rentabilidad de su voto podrían estar más predispuestos a consumir sondeos preelectorales.…”

Casting Ballots When Knowing Results

“…Historically, scenarios prompting sequential voting in technically simultaneous elections have been more common in countries with multiple time zones, where polls close in some parts of the country while remaining open in others. The 1980 US presidential race is perhaps the most notorious: Carter conceded to Reagan based on media coverage of East Coast results, but polls had not yet closed in the Westsomething that has also been associated with lower turnout and support rates for Democrats in Western congressional races (see, for example, Carpini 1984;Dubois 1983). 2 Despite similar recurring occurrences in the US and elsewhere since, the scholarship remains inconclusive about the direction and underlying mechanisms of the impact of information exposure on voter behaviour.…”