Most of us watched with interest earlier this year as the Democrats began the process of eliminating the competition and paring down their candidates for president of the United States. With the exception of those states that use a caucus system, the process relied on the votes of the masses to determine which candidate would get enough delegate votes to become the party’s candidate. First there were eight candidates; then there was one.
But before some voters even got home from the polls, winners were often already projected. With only a small percentage of the votes counted, television networks scurry to be the first to name a “projected winner.” As we come down the homestretch of the big race, we’ll again watch with interest on November 2 as a projected winner is declared state by state.
We’ve learned all about projected winners, haven’t we? Who can forget the election in 2000 when Al Gore was projected as the winner in Florida? It took about two months to clear up that mess, and George Bush ended up taking the state.
There’s always a margin of error with projected winners. Although most of the time the method used to predict those winners is accurate, it’s not foolproof. Some of you may well remember the picture of Harry Truman with a big smile on his face holding the Chicago Tribune edition on
