Since it is a presidential election year, I thought it might be useful to discuss election nights of the past. I'll start with the full NBC coverage (7pm-1:30am EST) from 1980. This was the election where NBC was able to call the election nearly two hours earlier than the other networks, ushering in the "exit poll" era. For that matter, from the first minute Chancellor and Co. openly say Reagan will win and win big.
-
Get involved.
We want your input!
Apply for Membership and join the conversations about everything related to broadcasting.
After we receive your registration, a moderator will review it. After your registration is approved, you will be permitted to post.
If you use a disposable or false email address, your registration will be rejected.
After your membership is approved, please take a minute to tell us a little bit about yourself.
https://www.radiodiscussions.com/forums/introduce-yourself.1088/
Thanks in advance and have fun!
RadioDiscussions Administrators
Retro Election Night Coverage
- Thread starter installLSC
- Start date
I recently watched a DVD of the 1960 Kennedy-Nixon election night, which turned into an all-nighter and the results not confirmed until the next morning. This was a special rebroadcast from the mid-90's likely on the brand new MSNBC, but A&E also did features like this.
The anchors were the famous NBC team of Chet Huntley and David Brinkley, but perhaps the most fascinating part of it was when they were introducing the RCA 501 computer, likely the first time a network used computers to help track election projections. They show a huge monster of a primitive computer, (the big reel-to-reel looking machines taking up the entire room), and the reporter saying that it would take "60,000 clerks to do what this machine can do in 5 minutes". (paraphrasing).
The NBC coverage was done from Studio 8H, The Saturday Night Live studio, You can definitely make out the logistics of the studio, as Huntley and Brinkley are anchoring from a desk up in the audience section of the studio looking down below at all the election maps. I believe they used this studio for several elections after this as well. In InstallLSC's 1980 video it is somewhat difficult to tell, but I would guess that also was from 8H, but from a somewhat lower anchor viewpoint. Pretty interesting stuff.
Last edited:
Of course, in 2016 it would take 60,000 RCA 501s to do what a 10-year-old with a smartphone can do in 5 minutes.
I was working in radio in 1980, and we carried the ABC coverage as well as local reports. The early projections were said to have depressed West Coast turnout. The TV election I remember most was the disputed 2000 election. I was working at Metro Networks at the time, in the producer's chair. I had heard the Gore concession, then the withdrawal of the concession on the radio. I get to work around 5:30am and a tired Dan Rather is still on the air instead of the usual local news team.
Indeed, the 2000 election was probably the most dramatic as it went back and forth with "calls", and "retractions". One for the ages. However, 1960 was also one for the ages, as Kennedy beat Nixon with results not finalized until the next morning. But from a media standpoint, the 2000 was the most exciting.
I recall that in 1976, NBC originally planned to take SNL on the road for a few weeks because NBC needed the studio for election coverage. Obviously, at some point they decided to simply move the coverage to a different studio, since the only non-NYC episode was the Mardi Gras episode they did in February 1977.
In 1980, the disaster that season would become didn't get going until after the election.
I don't know if this is of interest outside California, but it has gotten a lot of attention nationally - and even internationally since it happened because it seriously damaged the reputation of exit-poll reliability.
In the November 1982 California gubernatorial election, the popular 3 term Mayor of Los Angeles - Tom Bradley (D) was pitted against the respected, but rather dull state Attorney General George Deukmejian (R). Bradley was comfortably ahead in the polls in the days before the election, and all the election-night exit polls showed Bradley winning by a respectable margin. Multiple networks called the election for Bradley by 10:00 PST. But when the dust settled the next morning, Deukmejian had won by a thin but respectable margin - no recount required.
Speculation at the time was that race was a factor - Bradley was African-American- and that voters exiting the polling stations could not bring themselves to admit to the exit-pollers that race influenced their choice. This phenomenon was even given a name - "The Bradley Effect." But in the years since, many political researchers have studied the infamous incident to determine what went wrong with the exit polls. Current thinking is that the exit-pollers stop polling too early on election day, before the effect of the Deukmejian surge could be considered. Deukmejian - a tough-on-crime candidate - had been saturating the air waves the last few days before the election with statistics about the high crime rate in LA - and these ads presumably had a greater effect on voters at the end of the day...though that part hasn't been adequately explained.
In 1974, most Ohio voters went to bed thinking that John Gilligan (father of future Kansas governor and HHS director Kathleen Sebelius) had been re-elected governor over former governor Jim Rhodes, who had actually conceded. However, after over 3 million ballots had been cast, Rhodes won by 10,000 votes.
Going WAY back--100 years to be exact, Supreme Court Justice Charles Evans Hughes looked to have defeated Woodrow Wilson in the presidential race. However, California results hadn't been counted and Wilson won the state by 3,800 votes, thereby winning the 13 Electoral College votes and coming away with a 277-254 victory. An amusing (apocryphal) story about the drastic change was that supposedly when a reporter tried to telephone Hughes the next morning to get his reaction to Wilson's comeback, someone answered the phone and told the reporter that "the president is asleep". The reporter retorted, "When he wakes up, tell him he isn't the president."
Going WAY back--100 years to be exact, Supreme Court Justice Charles Evans Hughes looked to have defeated Woodrow Wilson in the presidential race. However, California results hadn't been counted and Wilson won the state by 3,800 votes, thereby winning the 13 Electoral College votes and coming away with a 277-254 victory. An amusing (apocryphal) story about the drastic change was that supposedly when a reporter tried to telephone Hughes the next morning to get his reaction to Wilson's comeback, someone answered the phone and told the reporter that "the president is asleep". The reporter retorted, "When he wakes up, tell him he isn't the president."
I thought as the country grew, so did the minimum number of electoral votes needed to win. Since 1964 now, it's been 270 (and California still the big bounty with 55 of them).
The House has been fixed at 435 members since 1911, except for 1959-63, when AK an HI were admitted, giving it 437. It was returned to 435 after the post-1960 reapportionment in 1964. As states like California, Texas, Arizona, and Florida grow and eastern states shrink, the House gets reapportioned with each census, but the total number remains at 435.
Add to that the number of Senators, 100 since 1959, plus the electoral votes of Washington DC since 1964, and you have your 538 electoral votes. The only way that changes if one or more states are added in the future, changing the total in the Senate.
The House was at 437 members through the 1962 elections. 1962 was the 1st election after the 1960 census and as a result the House elections that year were done under reapportionment done. And as stated the house went back to 435 members after the temporary increase to 437 in 1959 after Alaska and Hawaii were admitted.
That's an interesting bit of trivia about the extra House membership from 1959 through 1962.
Since we're on the subject of the 1960 election, I wasn't aware of the "faithless elector" issue until I started looking at the state-by-state results. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faithless_elector
Some states make it illegal to be a faithless elector, mandating that the elector must vote for the candidate who carried that state. But other states don't.
The Electoral College, as a physical electing body, IMO should be abolished. In its stead would be a proportional mechanism I'll call the Electoral Apportionment. The 535 votes would be divided according to the proportional share each candidate received of a state's congressional membership. Let's say you have 7 members for your state. Instead of winner-take-all 7 votes, it would be apportioned by the percentage of the popular vote each candidate won in that state.
Why not just allow the president to be selected by popular vote, instead of a rather convoluted system as the Electoral College or, the proposal above? Basically, it was a compromise between the smaller states and the larger states. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electoral_College_(United_States)#Background
Using the proportional system to allocate electoral votes, as Maine and Nebraska already do, would help to prevent the electoral votes from trumping the popular vote, as happened in the 2000 election.
Since we're on the subject of the 1960 election, I wasn't aware of the "faithless elector" issue until I started looking at the state-by-state results. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faithless_elector
Some states make it illegal to be a faithless elector, mandating that the elector must vote for the candidate who carried that state. But other states don't.
The Electoral College, as a physical electing body, IMO should be abolished. In its stead would be a proportional mechanism I'll call the Electoral Apportionment. The 535 votes would be divided according to the proportional share each candidate received of a state's congressional membership. Let's say you have 7 members for your state. Instead of winner-take-all 7 votes, it would be apportioned by the percentage of the popular vote each candidate won in that state.
Why not just allow the president to be selected by popular vote, instead of a rather convoluted system as the Electoral College or, the proposal above? Basically, it was a compromise between the smaller states and the larger states. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electoral_College_(United_States)#Background
Using the proportional system to allocate electoral votes, as Maine and Nebraska already do, would help to prevent the electoral votes from trumping the popular vote, as happened in the 2000 election.
Which, with other defections, is probably why the Big Three stopped doing full night midterm election coverage in 1986. I wonder if any network affiliate has pre-empted much or even all of a presidential election night coverage. I remember in 2012 our local ABC affiliate KOMO Seattle mostly broadcast local coverage in the 8pm hour--the same time the election was called.
States can select their electors any way they see fit. There is nothing in the US Constitution that mandates a popular vote, although it's been that way in every state but South Carolina since 1836. South Carolina "joined the party" after Reconstruction, but they were the only state who's Legislature pick the electors between 1836 and 1860.
Because the Constitution mandates the Electoral College, and it'll take an amendment to change that. Lotsa luck. Other than Maine and Nebraska, all states are winner-take-all. Again, this is not mandatory, and any state can do what Maine and Nebraska do if they want to. They just don't want to.
BTW, Gore winning the (meaningless) national popular vote but losing the Electoral College was the first time it had happened since 1876, which was also the last time a Presidential election was decided by the House.
Most of the UK elections are on Youtube. Here's just three
1970- the first election in colour (ignore the first minute or so- it's a clip from the 1935 newsreels of the radio coverage)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cq8PMfpA-6g
1979, Maggie's first victory
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9USm6g5eYgI
And 1997, one of the happiest nights of my life, when the Tories were finally booted into touch after 18 years
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5JttnDggWb8
David Dimbleby is a constant throughout (appearing as a young reporter early in the 1970 coverage, then taking the helm from '79). He said the 2015 election would be his last. We'll see.
Incidentally ITV also run full election coverage, much of it excellent, but it only draws a fraction of the BBC's audience. For whatever reason most people tended (and still do) to watch major national events on the BBC.
1970- the first election in colour (ignore the first minute or so- it's a clip from the 1935 newsreels of the radio coverage)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cq8PMfpA-6g
1979, Maggie's first victory
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9USm6g5eYgI
And 1997, one of the happiest nights of my life, when the Tories were finally booted into touch after 18 years
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5JttnDggWb8
David Dimbleby is a constant throughout (appearing as a young reporter early in the 1970 coverage, then taking the helm from '79). He said the 2015 election would be his last. We'll see.
Incidentally ITV also run full election coverage, much of it excellent, but it only draws a fraction of the BBC's audience. For whatever reason most people tended (and still do) to watch major national events on the BBC.
Here's a fantastic documentary on BBC election coverage over the years, unfortunately ending before 2000. I wish an American network would do something like this (especially how honest it is).
Actually, NBC did put out an e-book of their election night history from 1948 to 2012 (and will be updated soon to include 2016). Sadly, they never kept any of their 1956 coverage, which was anchored by Chet Huntley and David Brinkley.
A documentary like this would be like CNN's "The Sixties/Seventies/Eighties" and would feature any surviving key figures involved in election nights over the years from the networks (others, like Huntley, Brinkley, Cronkite, John Chancellor, Peter Jennings, Tim Russert, etc. are already dead)...not to mention loads of footage.
Technically speaking the 1876 election was not decided by the House but by a special committee that voted along party lines to award the disputed electoral votes to Rutherford B Hayes who won the presidency with a 185-184 electoral college margin. The election was not decided until March 2 which was 2 days before inauguration day(Through 1933 Inauguration day was March 4 and changed with the 22nd amendment(IIRC) to January 20
- Status