The Call
Most major television news networks had originally called Florida for Gore (before the polls closed in Florida), but retracted the call around 10 p.m. EST. Fox News was the first to lead the charge the other way, acting on data that included this impossible Volusia County 216th precinct data, completely altering the close race with a sudden 18,000+ vote margin opening up for Bush over Gore. Fox News called Florida for Bush at 2:16 a.m. on November 8, with other networks following in the next few minutes. These calls were then retracted and Florida declared too close to call once the Volusia error was reported to the networks.
The significance of the call is highlighted by Philip Meyer in his piece for the USA Today which stated :
From then on, nothing Democrats could do would overcome the appearance that they were trying to steal the election on technicalities. And nothing Republicans could say would overcome the suspicion that they had planned the whole thing.
Read more about this topic: Volusia Error
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—George Berkeley (1685–1753)