I must of missed something.
WQAD in Illinois, WTNH News Channel 8 in New Haven, Connecticut, WBAY-TV Action 2 News, in Wisconsin, and Ohio News Network all carry the following Associated Press report indicating that I must have missed the election:
US TopRaces
At this hour, President Bush has won re-election as president by a 47 percent to 43 percent margin in the popular vote nationwide. Ralph Nader has 1 percent of the vote nationwide. That's with 51 percent of the precincts reporting.
Bush has won 324 electoral votes in 33 states. He is leading in 4 states for a total of 43 more electoral votes.
Kerry has won 105 electoral votes in 8 states and the District of Columbia. He is leading in 5 states for a total of 48 more electoral votes.
Nader has not won any state and is not currently leading in any state.
The article goes on to report that the Republicans will retain control of the congress.
Anyone have any idea what this is about.
UPDATE: The Associated Press apparently pulled the story. All four of the above links now find this message:
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Oh well, it was fun while it lasted. I would still like to know what the AP was doing.
The full article has been posted at Dummocrats.com. I am willing to e-mail a copy to anyone who asks.
I've linked to the actual explanation (which is now up) here: http://dmobley.blogspot.com/2004/10/slept-too-late-today.html. It seems AP puts out a "test story" every so often which the wire is supposed to recognize as a test based on the word "TEST" in the headline, but somehow the word was missing this time and so it got posted by mistake. AP apparently uses different numbers every day, so if it had been a different day, it might have reported a Nader victory. Now THAT would have been weird.
Posted by: David | Friday, October 08, 2004 at 05:51 PM