The networks, however, maintained a studied silence on the failure of their coveted service, affecting the same bemusement as the rest of the country. Despite this, the results of their miscall were displayed on billboards across the country. Already eBay, the internet auction service, was offering copies of newspapers naming Bush as the next president. The fiercest critics of the polls were from the political parties, mostly from the Republicans, who said they had helped to distort results across America. Republicans claimed that the races in California and Washington state might have been closer had it not seemed that Mr Bush was heading for early defeat.
Exit polls are a relatively recent phenomenon in American elections.
Twenty years ago, television networks had to wait for the tallies from the actual votes. Since then they have increasingly become a staple part of the election process, and their results have been accepted unquestioningly as reflecting the correct result - as indeed they did, until this tightest of races. As voters emerge from the polls during election day, they are asked to fill out a short, simple form indicating who they voted for and why. These forms are then analysed to give a sense of who is going to win, long before the votes are counted. The networks do not announce their exit poll findings for any state until that state's polls have closed.