By Alex P. Vidal
“Win or lose, we go shopping after the election.” —Imelda Marcos
THE 2016 US presidential election was the first official presidential election in the United States that I covered physically as a journalist based in New York.
I did “cover” the 2012 presidential tussle between Democrat’s Barrack Obama and Republican’s Mitt Romney, but it was a virtual reportage from my former base in Toronto, Ontario.
In 2016, I was given accreditation by the New York State Board of Elections (NYSBE) and assigned in Brooklyn.
On election day, accredited journalists from around the world gathered at The Westin New York and given briefings by Board of Election bigwigs. We also attended a series of conferences participated by officials representing different state and federal agencies.
My accreditation gave me access to polling precincts where I managed to take photos and “live” videos of voters while they were casting their votes (I don’t know if this is allowed in the Philippines); I also interviewed some of them as they exited.
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Like most journalists and political observers, I thought Clinton, who beat Trump in popularity votes (Clinton 65,853,514 votes; Trump 62,984,828 votes) would handily clinch the presidency and become the first woman in US history to occupy the White House.
I was on my way to Jacob Javits Convention Center on 34th and 38th Avenues in New York City at past six o’clock in the evening on November 8, 2016, where Clinton was supposed to hold her proclamation when I was barred entry in the 11th Avenue.
I froze as I overheard some people invited in the event—and rushing to the center like me—quipped, “The proclamation program might not push through.”
Alas, Trump rolled past Clinton, 304–227, in the electoral votes.
I went straight to the Times Square until midnight where I saw New Yorkers mourned and cried like French and British residents who heard the demise of Princess Diana, 36, in a traffic collision in Paris, France on August 31,1997.
Unlike in the Philippines where all elections are managed and governed by the Commission on Elections (Comelec), those responsible for monitoring all aspects of an election in the United States, from ballot access to voting provisions, are state election agencies.
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Responsibility for election administration commonly falls to the secretary of state; in 37 states, the secretary of state is involved to some extent in election administration.
In a handful of states, dedicated agencies (usually boards of elections) administer elections. In addition, 20 states have ethics commissions, which are typically involved in the administration and/or enforcement of campaign finance laws.
The federal government plays a limited role in elections, though candidates for federal office must file campaign finance reports with the Federal Election Commission.
The Election Assistance Commission functions in a largely advisory capacity, providing guidance to state and local election officials. In addition, local governments often play a significant role in the election process, though the extent of local government participation varies from state to state.
According to ballotpedia, the Federal Election Commission (FEC) is a federal regulatory agency charged with administering and enforcing the nation’s campaign finance laws.
The commission was created by the United States Congress in 1975. The commission comprises six members who serve six-year terms of office. Two seats are appointed every two years. All commissioners are appointed by the president with the advice and consent of the United States Senate.
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I WILL never trust the polls, or the public opinion polling especially in the US presidential election after the 2016 presidential election.
The term “poll” originally was a synonym for “head.” Polls counted heads at meetings or political rallies to gauge popular sentiment.
Americans use polls to count heads, too, just a little more scientifically than under the old methods, as the primary way to find out what the public knows, thinks and wants.
In the 2016 presidential election that pitted charismatic Democrat candidate Hilary Clinto against Republican’s Donald Trump, the results came as a surprise to nearly everyone who had been following the national and state election polling, which consistently projected Clinton as defeating Trump.
Relying largely on opinion polls, election forecasters put Clinton’s chance of winning at anywhere from 70 percent to as high as 99 percent, and pegged her as the heavy favorite to win a number of states such as Pennsylvania and Wisconsin that in the end were taken by Trump.
“How could the polls have been so wrong about the state of the election?” asked the Pew Research Center.
There is a great deal of speculation but no clear answers as to the cause of the disconnect, but there is one point of agreement: Across the board, polls underestimated Trump’s level of support, explained the Pew Research Center.
With few exceptions, the final round of public polling showed Clinton with a lead of 1 to 7 percentage points in the national popular vote. State-level polling was more variable, but there were few instances where polls overstated Trump’s support.
The fact that so many forecasts were off-target was particularly notable given the increasingly wide variety of methodologies being tested and reported via the mainstream media and other channels. The traditional telephone polls of recent decades are now joined by increasing numbers of high profile, online probability and nonprobability sample surveys, as well as prediction markets, all of which showed similar errors.
Pollsters reportedly didn’t have a clear diagnosis yet for the misfires, and it will likely be some time before we know for sure what happened. There were, however, several possible explanations for the misstep that many in the polling community would be talking about in upcoming weeks.
(The author, who is now based in New York City, used to be the editor of two daily newspapers in Iloilo.—Ed)
