n a development that mocked the television networks' high-tech powers of prognostication, the state that provided George W. Bush with his margin of victory early this morning was initially placed in the Al Gore column, then relabeled as ''too close to call,'' and ultimately, at 2:18, awarded to the Texas governor.
''It proves the systems are incredibly fallible,'' said Av Westin, a former ABC News vice president. ''It proves the pressure to be first can be misdirected. Somebody must have forgotten to do their homework.''
''As a viewer, it [was] very confusing,'' said Tom Rosenstiel, executive director of the Committee of Concerned Journalists, who recalled seeing CBS's Dan Rather hint of a Bush victory while NBC was still carrying Florida in the Gore column. ''Now it's back to the future when they [the networks] don't know what's going on again.''
The critical television story heated up just before 8 p.m. when NBC called the first huge battleground state - Florida - for Gore, moments before the other networks.
Not long after, top Bush strategist Karl Rove appeared on NBC to complain bitterly that the call of Florida for Gore was ''premature.'' His concern was that by giving the state to Gore, the networks could depress the turnout for Bush farther west.
And in a remarkable development that epitomized the grinding drama of the night, the networks - with NBC being the last to do so - finally placed Florida back into the uncertain category several hours after the initial call.
''The night just got more complicated and tricky,'' ventured CNN analyst Jeff Greenfield, in a massive understatement.
The mess was finally untangled four hours later when a Bush victory in Florida gave him the White House. Late last night, the networks were still scrambling to explain what had gone wrong with the Florida information provided by the Voter News Service consortium. ''It became clear as time went on that some of the data we got from Florida was bad data,'' said CBS spokeswoman Sandy Genelius. ''We don't know if it came from exit polling information or precinct counts.''
ABC spokesman Jeffrey Schneider said: ''We were no longer certain of our projections because we were told by VNS that there were some problems with the data.''
''Simply put, VNS was wrong,'' added Fox News Channel spokeswoman Dana White. VNS officials were not available for comment.
It did look like old times for much of last night as the ebbs and flows of the returns took the television anchors, pundits, and the viewing audience on a dizzying election night roller coaster ride.
''Pull up a chair. It's an election like we haven't seen in decades,'' said Greenfield, who was palpably excited at the prospect of a long dramatic battle for the presidency.
In a move that almost smacked of false bravado, throughout the night, CNN displayed a graphic that impatiently began ticking off the seconds in a ''countdown to next poll closing.''
But picking winners proved much more difficult than simply waiting for the polls to close. In the most prescient comment of the night, Al Gore's campaign chairman, William Daley, told CBS at 7:15 that ''there'll be lots of surprises in my opinion. And that will be good television.''
In fact, the first two hours of prime-time programming last night featured all the drama of a ''Survivor'' episode, as both men struggled to keep their electoral-map scenarios of victory alive.
As two major battleground states - Michigan and Illinois - moved into the vice president's camp, the interval between 8 and 9 p.m. turned into the Pennsylvania hour.
In an interview on NBC, Daley said that ''we're gonna win Pennsylvania, and Al Gore will be the next president of the United States'' just moments before the state's Republican governor, Tom Ridge, told NBC's Tom Brokaw that ''I think at the end of the day, it's going to go in the W. column for W.''
Shortly before 9, while Boston's three major network affiliates were covering Senator Edward M. Kennedy's acceptance speech, CNN first called Pennsylvania for Gore.
And while the momentum seemed to switch to the vice president, it didn't last long.
The crucial states of Ohio and Tennessee were called for Bush, and the pundits were almost back to square one.
''The more states that are called ... [the more] we don't know who the next president of the United States will be,'' Greenfield said.
Over at NBC, a befuddled Tim Russert said that every time he did the Electoral College math, ''I kept coming up with 269 [electoral votes] to 269 [electoral votes].''
By 10:30 p.m., with all the ad hoc addition and subtraction going on, Rather said, ''Let's leave no doubt about it. The advantage this hour is with Bush.''
But given the incredible flap over Florida, last night's election coverage tended to remind one of the New England weather. If you didn't like the way the election seemed to be going, just wait 20 minutes.
