johnkeefe.net

There's a lot to consider when designing comprehensive, contextual coverage for the biggest news night of the year:

- Pinpointing the key stories
- Getting early warnings on those stories
- Scheduling hosts and producers all night
- Deciding where to send reporters and producers
- Engaging the audience
- Ensuring strong staffing the day after

As we prototype and plan for Election Night 2008, here are some of the issues that have come into play:

A Foregone Conclusion?

One of our crystal balls is FiveThirtyEight.com, a fantastic, transparent analysis of polling data. The most beautiful part? Nate Silver runs 10,000 simulations of the outcome based on the errors and fluctuations possible in every poll. Ten thousand prototypes daily. Wow. Below is today's chart of how many electoral votes Obama gets in each simulation:

... which is to say, in nearly 1400 simulations, Obama gets 375 electoral votes. The total possible is 538 (hence the name of the site); it takes 270 to win the election.

The other crystal ball is the Intrade prediction market, where real money is bet on each state's electoral vote. Intrade has been shockingly accurate, from predicting each state Bush won in 2000 to the super-secret selection of the Pope.

Both site show a solid Obama electoral win, and have for a month now. They could be wrong, and they will certainly adjust as we get closer to the election. But in September, a landslide was not a part of our equation; it is now.

The Voting Story

Voter turnout could break records, at a moment when voting machines are untested in many states -- such as, surprise, Florida. Any case of voting failure, no matter what your political leaning, is a story in a democracy and an echo to 2000.

But FiveThirtyEight's simulations suggest there's only a 2 percent chance a decisive state will have a vote close enough to trigger a recount. And the chance of that winner of the popular vote will be different from the winner of the electoral vote is between one-tenth of a percent and zero.

Live Election Companion

We had a smashing success running our live debate companion during the candidate face-offs. People were able to participate in real time and get insights from our public radio luminaries.

On election night, what's the right way to have people involved? Set aside a key hour for a similar chat? When would that be? Have it open all night? Would that be a valuable experience? Better to have a running blog of updates?

On this, we're open to input. Comment below if you have any thoughts.

[WNYC's election night coverage begins at 7 p.m. and runs through the following morning -- online at wnyc.org and in New York at 93.9FM and AM820.]

UPDATE ... Our digital election team met today and decided to run the Live Election Companion, with participation from our on-air hosts, from 8 p.m. to 11 p.m. on the WNYC and The Takeaway websites.