To anyone who knows a damn thing about computers, does this make *any sense*?
On Tuesday night, VNS realized its spanking-new operating system didn't work as well as it hoped. Like a crew facing a possible shipwreck, it looked for cargo to throw overboard. The most obvious thing to jettison was some of the exit polling data. It takes a lot of computer hardware and operators to process the huge amount of data—why did black women in Arkansas over 35 vote for that candidate—that goes into an exit poll. Dumping that data would allow VNS to keep churning out basic horserace numbers from the polls.
For polling analysts at the networks and academics who thrive on postelection studies of the exit polls, this may be a huge loss (though one network executive is pretty sure the data can eventually be retrieved for the cause of scholarship).
But that lost data did not have any impact on the fundamental question of calling the election. For the purpose of declaring winners and losers, the networks appear to have had all the data they normally have
I just can't imagine any circumstances under which a) it would be *necessary* to delete for all eternity, with no backups or copies or original source intact, a bunch of data so to crunch the numbers. And, b) even if it was necessary, the value of projecting elections 5 minutes early versus the historical value of all the other data...what a ridiculous call to make.
This is just too weird.
