When people vote, they expect the outcome to be announced quickly and fairly. But election results can take days or even weeks to verify, and they are only official once they have been certified. This process is essential to ensuring that voters can have confidence in the official results and ensures the integrity of the electoral system. The process varies from state to state, but typically includes several steps.
News outlets use a variety of data to track the race and predict its result, including exit polls, totals of early in-person and mail ballots, partial results collected by reporters after polls close, and patterns from past elections. This information is fed into a vote reporting system that each outlet uses to make a projection. They typically don’t share their vote counting projections with other media outlets to avoid causing confusion or misinformation.
Once they have a prediction, the news outlets will report it and continue to provide updates as the votes are counted. News outlets dedicate varying amounts of time to these updates, and some races may be “called” early in the evening while others remain uncalled until the final count is complete.
Once the votes are tallied, they are reviewed and verified for accuracy by state election officials. The process can take days or weeks and requires a substantial investment of human and financial resources. But it is vital to the health of democracy that we can have confidence in the official results and the integrity of our electoral system.
About the Author
