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America Votes 2002: Voting Issues Persist
Aired November 01, 2002 - 13:30 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
MARTIN SAVIDGE, CNN ANCHOR: Hanging chads should not be a problem in Tuesday's election, but there is more than enough voting controversy in Florida and elsewhere. More on that from our senior political Correspondent Candy Crowley.
Candy, I understand there were long lines apparently in Florida, a full load of questions.
What were people doing in line waiting to vote.
CANDY CROWLEY, CNN SR. POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, in Florida, as you may remember Florida from the last election, they wanted to try to ease what they think will be heavy voting, particularly in Southern Florida, Miami-Dade, that may sound familiar, and Broward. So they have some early voting and they have absentee voting. Now what you're looking at here are people who came to do early voting. The only problem was that this, what you're seeing at the moment, is in Broward, and the problem is that their ballot is so long it took some people up to two hours to vote.
So they're trying to figure this out , because this will not be a good thing. The reason they wanted about 50,000 people to vote ahead of time is that both Broward and Miami-Dade, which had been problematic in the last two elections in Florida, are expecting about half a million people, and they have new voting machines, and so it will be real interesting.
SAVIDGE: I can see the headline now, Deja Vu in 2002. Voter turnout obviously going to be critical in a number of races, but especially in the Florida governor race.
CROWLEY: You know, voter turnout is critical absolutely everywhere. Midterm elections are always about turnout, because what we generally have are a lot fewer people voting than in a presidential election. When you have close races as you don in Florida, as you do in so many places, it really gets down to who's going to show up to vote, and that's why you see such a struggle. Within Florida right now, we've got suits going on about who can be observers and people saying let's put paper ballots in there, because they might not understand the computers, because it just matters. You know, that whole every vote counts thing, it's really true in these very, very close elections.
SAVIDGE: I'm a big believer in that every vote counts. Minnesota and absentee ballots and counting those. What's going on with Minnesota now? CROWLEY: This is really tough. Before Senator Wellstone was killed, people had sent in their absentee ballots. So the Democratic Party said, it started out OK, everyone who voted for Norm Coleman, their vote will count, but the Wellstone votes won't count. And the Democratic Party went to court. Here's what they came up with, anyone who voted for Wellstone that asks for a new absentee ballot will get one. Only problem it's Friday and the election is Tuesday. Some question as to whether can you get your absentee ballot, vote on it and get it back in time for the election.
Now, absentee ballots very frequently are counted after the election in many states. But the fact of the matter is, it may count -- in this one, it may mean a lot in this one. And you've got people who applied for absentee ballots, presumably, are who are not in-state at the moment.
So what the Democrats really wanted was for everyone who cast a vote for Wellstone to automatically be sent an absentee ballot, but the court said anybody that asks for one gets it. So there's another little issue going on in Minnesota.
SAVIDGE: Part of the prerequisite is that you had to have voted for Wellstone. Who's going to check to see if you did vote for Wellstone.
CROWLEY: Well, unfortunately I was talking to Howie Kurtz about this, and he said, here's the problem with that. I don't think, and it may differ state to state, but in some states they don't open those absentee ballots and throw them into the machine until Election Day.
So you would have to then open all these votes, look at who voted for Wellstone. But I have to give you a little caveat, I'm not really sure how they do it in Minnesota.
SAVIDGE: Speaking of Howard Kurtz, we're going to go on and talk to him.
Candy Crowley, thanks very much, joining us live from Washington.
In the presidential election two years ago, the TV networks were pretty much embarrassed more than once by calling winners early, and then being wrong. Do not expect a repeat of that on Tuesday night. Howard Kurtz is "The Washington Post" media critic, and he's also a host of CNN's "Reliable Sources."
He joins us now. And, Howard, you don't think it's going to play out that way again on Tuesday?
HOWARD KURTZ, MEDIA CRITIC: I think network executives are having Florida flashbacks as election night draws closer, and they are falling all over themselves to reassure us they're not going to fall into that trap. This was a disaster waiting to happen as the networks became more bold over the years in making these projections based on sometimes flawed exit polls.
So I think what's going to happen is that in a very tight race really for both houses of Congress, any contest that's within about 5 percent I think the networks, all of them, are going to be very wary of making a projection, making it very likely it will be a very late night, or we won't know who controls the Senate, even when people are waking up the next morning.
SAVIDGE: How do how they figure out who wins and loses? In other words, what is their source of information to tell them who the winner is?
KURTZ: There's a consortium that a lot of people became familiar with in the 2000 election called the Voter News Service, which is basically the major networks and the Associated Press, and they do two things, they round up the raw vote totals, which is very useful if you have actual totals, which shows somebody's a half million votes ahead, you're probably pretty safe in saying -- projecting them as the winner.
But they also do exit polling. They ask people coming out of the polls, how did you vote, and so forth. That consortium is having some problems getting ready. I think state-by-state exit polls will be ready, meaning that networks will be able to, if they dare, call some of these races. We may not know the typical analytical and Democrat graphic stuff about age groups, and race and what issues are most important. We'll have to wait and see.
So this is going to be an election night, I think, because of what happened in Florida, where everybody is kind of on edge, being very cautious, and where CNN, for example, is not going to throw something on the air just because some other network did, because I think the sense that all the executives have is being right is probably in this case more important than being first.
SAVIDGE: That could mean, in some case, they wait days before they make an announcement.
KURTZ: And that may happen, because for one thing, there may court be challenges, there may be recounts, there may be places like South Dakota and Minnesota and other tight Senate contests, where we simply may not know who won, and the real wild card is, if Senator Mary Landrieu in Louisiana doesn't hit 50 percent in her race, although she's well ahead of her opponent, she'll have to face a runoff on December 4th. And if the Senate is hanging by one seat, we won't know who controls the United States Senate until December 4th. That will give a month of extra campaign coverage to the networks. I don't know how they feel about that. It depends on how interested the public feels, because mostly until the last few days, the campaign coverage has been overshadowed by the sniper story, by Wellstone's staff, by Iraq and other stories that somehow seem more dramatic.
SAVIDGE: It's going to hold a new meaning to the term stay tuned. All right, Howard Kurtz, thanks very much. We appreciate it, live from Washington.
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
Aired November 1, 2002 - 13:30 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
MARTIN SAVIDGE, CNN ANCHOR: Hanging chads should not be a problem in Tuesday's election, but there is more than enough voting controversy in Florida and elsewhere. More on that from our senior political Correspondent Candy Crowley.
Candy, I understand there were long lines apparently in Florida, a full load of questions.
What were people doing in line waiting to vote.
CANDY CROWLEY, CNN SR. POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, in Florida, as you may remember Florida from the last election, they wanted to try to ease what they think will be heavy voting, particularly in Southern Florida, Miami-Dade, that may sound familiar, and Broward. So they have some early voting and they have absentee voting. Now what you're looking at here are people who came to do early voting. The only problem was that this, what you're seeing at the moment, is in Broward, and the problem is that their ballot is so long it took some people up to two hours to vote.
So they're trying to figure this out , because this will not be a good thing. The reason they wanted about 50,000 people to vote ahead of time is that both Broward and Miami-Dade, which had been problematic in the last two elections in Florida, are expecting about half a million people, and they have new voting machines, and so it will be real interesting.
SAVIDGE: I can see the headline now, Deja Vu in 2002. Voter turnout obviously going to be critical in a number of races, but especially in the Florida governor race.
CROWLEY: You know, voter turnout is critical absolutely everywhere. Midterm elections are always about turnout, because what we generally have are a lot fewer people voting than in a presidential election. When you have close races as you don in Florida, as you do in so many places, it really gets down to who's going to show up to vote, and that's why you see such a struggle. Within Florida right now, we've got suits going on about who can be observers and people saying let's put paper ballots in there, because they might not understand the computers, because it just matters. You know, that whole every vote counts thing, it's really true in these very, very close elections.
SAVIDGE: I'm a big believer in that every vote counts. Minnesota and absentee ballots and counting those. What's going on with Minnesota now? CROWLEY: This is really tough. Before Senator Wellstone was killed, people had sent in their absentee ballots. So the Democratic Party said, it started out OK, everyone who voted for Norm Coleman, their vote will count, but the Wellstone votes won't count. And the Democratic Party went to court. Here's what they came up with, anyone who voted for Wellstone that asks for a new absentee ballot will get one. Only problem it's Friday and the election is Tuesday. Some question as to whether can you get your absentee ballot, vote on it and get it back in time for the election.
Now, absentee ballots very frequently are counted after the election in many states. But the fact of the matter is, it may count -- in this one, it may mean a lot in this one. And you've got people who applied for absentee ballots, presumably, are who are not in-state at the moment.
So what the Democrats really wanted was for everyone who cast a vote for Wellstone to automatically be sent an absentee ballot, but the court said anybody that asks for one gets it. So there's another little issue going on in Minnesota.
SAVIDGE: Part of the prerequisite is that you had to have voted for Wellstone. Who's going to check to see if you did vote for Wellstone.
CROWLEY: Well, unfortunately I was talking to Howie Kurtz about this, and he said, here's the problem with that. I don't think, and it may differ state to state, but in some states they don't open those absentee ballots and throw them into the machine until Election Day.
So you would have to then open all these votes, look at who voted for Wellstone. But I have to give you a little caveat, I'm not really sure how they do it in Minnesota.
SAVIDGE: Speaking of Howard Kurtz, we're going to go on and talk to him.
Candy Crowley, thanks very much, joining us live from Washington.
In the presidential election two years ago, the TV networks were pretty much embarrassed more than once by calling winners early, and then being wrong. Do not expect a repeat of that on Tuesday night. Howard Kurtz is "The Washington Post" media critic, and he's also a host of CNN's "Reliable Sources."
He joins us now. And, Howard, you don't think it's going to play out that way again on Tuesday?
HOWARD KURTZ, MEDIA CRITIC: I think network executives are having Florida flashbacks as election night draws closer, and they are falling all over themselves to reassure us they're not going to fall into that trap. This was a disaster waiting to happen as the networks became more bold over the years in making these projections based on sometimes flawed exit polls.
So I think what's going to happen is that in a very tight race really for both houses of Congress, any contest that's within about 5 percent I think the networks, all of them, are going to be very wary of making a projection, making it very likely it will be a very late night, or we won't know who controls the Senate, even when people are waking up the next morning.
SAVIDGE: How do how they figure out who wins and loses? In other words, what is their source of information to tell them who the winner is?
KURTZ: There's a consortium that a lot of people became familiar with in the 2000 election called the Voter News Service, which is basically the major networks and the Associated Press, and they do two things, they round up the raw vote totals, which is very useful if you have actual totals, which shows somebody's a half million votes ahead, you're probably pretty safe in saying -- projecting them as the winner.
But they also do exit polling. They ask people coming out of the polls, how did you vote, and so forth. That consortium is having some problems getting ready. I think state-by-state exit polls will be ready, meaning that networks will be able to, if they dare, call some of these races. We may not know the typical analytical and Democrat graphic stuff about age groups, and race and what issues are most important. We'll have to wait and see.
So this is going to be an election night, I think, because of what happened in Florida, where everybody is kind of on edge, being very cautious, and where CNN, for example, is not going to throw something on the air just because some other network did, because I think the sense that all the executives have is being right is probably in this case more important than being first.
SAVIDGE: That could mean, in some case, they wait days before they make an announcement.
KURTZ: And that may happen, because for one thing, there may court be challenges, there may be recounts, there may be places like South Dakota and Minnesota and other tight Senate contests, where we simply may not know who won, and the real wild card is, if Senator Mary Landrieu in Louisiana doesn't hit 50 percent in her race, although she's well ahead of her opponent, she'll have to face a runoff on December 4th. And if the Senate is hanging by one seat, we won't know who controls the United States Senate until December 4th. That will give a month of extra campaign coverage to the networks. I don't know how they feel about that. It depends on how interested the public feels, because mostly until the last few days, the campaign coverage has been overshadowed by the sniper story, by Wellstone's staff, by Iraq and other stories that somehow seem more dramatic.
SAVIDGE: It's going to hold a new meaning to the term stay tuned. All right, Howard Kurtz, thanks very much. We appreciate it, live from Washington.
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
