Meanwhile, the network downplayed John Ellis' role in leading Fox News Channel at 2:16 a.m. Wednesday to become the first network to declare that Bush had won Florida, and hence the presidency.

Ellis was working on a temporary contract and his status is under review, said John Moody, Fox News Channel vice president for news and editorial quality.

Ellis, a first cousin to the Texas governor, was the director of Fox's decision team on election night. He was responsible for interpreting election data and helping Fox News Channel declare states for either Bush or Al Gore.

"He was hired by Fox because of his ability, not his bloodline," Moody said. Ellis worked for 11 years at NBC News and had an excellent reputation as an elections returns analyst, he said.

The New Yorker magazine reported that Ellis had frequent phone conversations with Bush and his brother, Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, on election night, letting them know how the vote was going.

Fox is examining whether those conversations violated rules set by Voter News Service restricting when exit poll information could be released. VNS is a consortium that conducts the surveys for five television networks and The Associated Press.

Ellis, who would not comment, acknowledged in a letter to The New Yorker that he spoke with George W. Bush twice on the afternoon of Nov. 7, but did not share any exit poll data.

"I did tell him I thought the race would be close overall, but he was already well aware of that," Ellis said in the letter.

Ellis, whose mother, Nancy Ellis, is the sister of former President George Bush, acknowledged speaking frequently with both cousins in the evening -- but about vote results, not exit poll information. Other members of Fox's election night team were communicating with Gore's campaign, he said.

By about 2 a.m., the statistics were looking good for Bush, and The New Yorker said this was reflected in Ellis' phone conversations.

"It was just the three of us guys handing the phone back and forth -- me with the numbers, one of them a governor, the other the President-elect," Ellis said in the magazine. "Now, that was cool."

Although Ellis was part of the team calling Florida, and thus the election, for Bush, Fox News Channel said Moody made the final decision. ABC, NBC, CBS and CNN all made the same call within four minutes.

By two hours later, each network had rescinded its declaration, and the Florida results are still in dispute.

Bob Steele, director of the ethics program at the Poynter Institute in Florida, said he found Ellis' conversations with his cousins while working at a news agency troubling. He called the incident a black mark on Fox's reputation.

"His connection with them is so profoundly personal that I don't see that it's possible for him to wear a legitimate, detached, professional observer-analyst hat," Steele said.