Is the FIX IN Again?  AP Publishes News Story that says:
"Bush wins election, Republicans keep House/Senate."
Earlier today (10/7/2004), the AP pushed a story to it's affiliates with the headline "Bush wins election, Republicans keep House/Senate." The story appeared briefly on the WBAY-TVwebsite [here ]before it was taken down. The lead: "President Bush has won re-election as president by a 47 percent to 43 percent margin in the popular vote... Bush has won 324 electoral votes in 33 states. He is leading in 4 states for a total of 43 more electoral votes". [more ]

• SEE a screenshot of the article [here ] and [here ] WBAY TV Issued a correction and offered the following explanation:
• "Correction: President Bush Did Not Win Election on October 7. With less than a month before the presidential election, an Associated Press test article declaring President Bush the winner was picked up by WBAY.com's automated system. The article was not recognized by our web host's system as a test message. The mistake was picked up by a discussion group on Daily Kos, prompting a phone call that alerted us to the problem. Our web host, WorldNow, removed the story in less than five minutes. The article appeared on WBAY.com for 35 minutes. WBAY apologizes for the error, and we took quick action to correct it. The Associated Press tests election results about four times a week leading up to elections, especially one as crucial as a presidential election, to help TV stations and newspapers make sure they are receiving the numbers. The numbers are random with every test; if this error happened a day sooner or a day later, it could've been Senator Kerry or Ralph Nader who was declared the winner." [uh-huh ]
  
• Text of original article [here]