Cronkite Comments on Election

CHARLESTON, W.Va. (AP) â€” Walter Cronkite has a suggestion for news organizations trying to call election night winners: Slow down. <br><br>Broadcast networks bungled their calls of the presidential race

Tuesday, November 28th 2000, 12:00 am

By: News On 6

CHARLESTON, W.Va. (AP) â€” Walter Cronkite has a suggestion for news organizations trying to call election night winners: Slow down.

Broadcast networks bungled their calls of the presidential race in Florida, where both George W. Bush and Al Gore were declared the winner at various times on election night.

``I don't understand the need for this speed, although I was certainly one of the progenitors of the whole idea of the exit polling,'' Cronkite said in an interview in the Sunday Gazette-Mail.

``Nowadays, with the exit polling, we're calling these states so early that there are really some three hours left of voting time out on the West Coast, and it seems to me that very probably it could work just as well to withhold returns until all the states have voted,'' the retired CBS anchorman said.

The electoral mayhem in Florida ``kind of casts all of our thinking a little differently than it had been up to this election,'' he added.