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  • 2020-03-18 (xsd:date)
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  • Did a TV Station Report Biden-Sanders Primary Results Before the Election? (en)
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  • On March 16, 2020, a Facebook user was watching a local news broadcast when an image graphic supposedly showing results from a 2020 Democratic presidential primary election popped up on the screen. This wouldn't have been very unusual except for one thing: The election hadn't happened yet. The Facebook user posted a video of the broadcast on Facebook. The image graphic in question, shown below, shows former U.S. Vice President Joe Biden winning the Illinois primary with 50% of the vote and defeating Sen. Bernie Sanders: WCIA truly did broadcast the above-displayed graphic the day before the 2020 Illinois primary. However, this is not a story about election rigging or a news station with unusual prognosticating abilities. This is a story about a broadcasting error. Television news stations do a lot of prep work before live broadcasts, especially for an election. One thing they do is make image graphics similar to the one above. Once the visuals are set, reporters can plug in the results and quickly produce an image ready for television. In the case above, one of these test visuals was accidentally aired on television. CNN made a similar mistake in 2013 when they accidentally published pre-written obituaries for people who were still very much alive. WCIA reporter Mark Maxwell reached out to the Facebook user after her post went viral and explained that this was a test graphic that was never meant to air: Rich Flesch, the News Director of WCIA, also reached out, writing: The user updated her Facebook post to include both of these responses. The claim that this image shows tomorrow's results can also be debunked by looking at the actual results of the primary election in question. On March 17, 2020, the day after WCIA accidentally published the test graphic, the election took place and the real results were made available. While the test graphic showed Biden winning with 986,341 votes (or 50%), Biden actually ended up getting 913,067 votes (or 59.1% of the vote). Sanders fared better in the test graphic with 893,249 votes (for 45%); in the election he took in 556,904 votes (or 36%). (en)
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