And then the networks made the same mistake again.
At 2:15 a.m, Fox News declared that Bush had, indeed, taken Florida.
That decision was based on actual votes, and not on data from VNS, according to a Fox spokesperson.
Within minutes the other networks followed suit, and Gore called Bush to offer his concession.
By this time, Florida vote counters had reported about 94 percent of the returns. Bush led by about 30,000 votes. As the percentages slowly grew, the margin of victory diminished rapidly. Those returns were largely from Democratic South Florida.
Suddenly, the margin was a mere 217 votes.
At 3:17 a.m., the networks began to pull their calls.
The next day, the networks blamed VNS, and VNS blamed statistical vagaries.
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