Every week we put our faith into action at All Saints Church and this week we add our voices calling on the major media outlets to refrain from calling the winner of the Presidential Election until all the votes are counted.
Given the coronavirus pandemic and an unprecedented percentage of the ballots which will be cast by mail (which will take longer to count) any election results reported on November 3 will be incomplete and inaccurate.
Because of the ongoing attacks undermining the legitimacy of the election — particularly mailed in ballots — there is a real danger that early returns could lead to a declared victory which would inhibit late vote counting.
While we have confidence that the vast bulk of local and state election officials will follow their states’ laws and the courts will protect the established due process of vote verification and tabulation, we fear that sowing doubt and creating chaos would deepen our current national state of discord.
On September 17, the National Task Force on Election Crises—a consortium of election experts and academics issued a letter to the National Election Pool (which includes ABC, NBC, CBS, and CNN), Fox News, and the Associated Press urging them to detail how they are going to handle Election Day reporting.
There is usually a furious race to call the winner in every election cycle, but this year needs to be different. The message to the National Election Pool (all major media outlets) is as follows:
The 2020 presidential election is highly unusual. A record number of voters will be casting absentee ballots, which suggests that any early Election Night numbers of in-person voting will be highly irregular, incomplete and inaccurate. You must commit to no reporting on exit polls, no big boards, and absolutely no presidential calls until all ballots are counted.
