Jan 29th, 2008
Florida Station Declared the Winners of the Florida Race - In the Morning of the Primary?
Florida’s Channel 9, TV station WFTV.com, declared the winners of the Florida Primary earlier today posting the outcome before any precincts were even reporting. They claimed Barack Obama the winner on the Democratic side with 27% of the vote and 688,703 total votes. The chart displayed John McCain as the proclaimed ‘winner’ on the Republican ticket with 18% of the vote and 459,135 total votes. WFTV reported the statewide election results for Florida as “100% precincts reporting”, according to their website earlier today (click screenshot below).
WFTV.com has since taken down the bogus results as dozens have inundated WFTV to voice their concerns regarding how this maneuver could have an adverse affect of the voting procedure and possibly dissuade potential voters viewing the false chart.
A spokesperson for WFTV responded to the accusations saying “the original numbers on the chart were just test numbers and how his station has received (inundated) with phone calls and emails asking why they would post the winners prematurely.” The spokesperson responded to concerns of dissuading voters, “I think the Florida electorate is smarter than that and we only had the chart up for no more than 2 minutes.”
Many argue though that firstly, the chart was up for more than 2 minutes and secondly, even if WFTV was only testing, why test it live and then leave it up on-line for all to see for the majority of the morning. It appears another underhanded maneuver by the media to undermine the voting process. He said that was not their intention whatsoever.
Comparing screenshots of the WFTV’s ‘pre-results’ to the actual results tonight might be interesting to see the placement of the candidates and how closely WFTV’s
predictions, or tests were.
It seems certain that these ‘tests’ won’t parallel the ‘official’ tallies as it shows Kucinich garnering 18% for fourth place, just behind Clinton with 21% and Edwards with 24%. Then, in an unlikely event on the Republican side, Rudy Giuliani places second with 17% in front of Romney who is close behind with 16%. Paul finishes fifth with 11%, but behind the drop-out Thompson with 13% and Huckabee at 12%.
The current WFTV primary results page is reset to zero at this present time.
One Response to “Florida Station Declared the Winners of the Florida Race - In the Morning of the Primary?”
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.
What is WFTV stand for anyway? - We Fucked The Vote?