The United States does not have a national agency responsible for collecting and publishing election results. Elections are managed locally, by thousands of offices, according to rules set by the states. In many cases, states themselves don’t even offer up-to-date tracking of election results. Different media companies therefore do the work of collecting and compiling data.
One of the main players is the Associated Press (AP) agency. An agency is a kind of super editorial team made up of thousands of journalists all over the world. National media can call on AP to cover a news story at the drop of a hat. One example among others: Philip Crowther, an AP reporter who can speak on television in six languages, who you may have seen on our news shows.
AP vote count fills gap
AP explains on its website that it “has been counting the results of national, regional and local elections since 1848. Broadly speaking, the process is the same today as it was then: the reporters responsible for counting the votes collect the election results at the local level as soon as the polls close, then submit these results to the AP to collect, verify and publish them.“
“The AP vote count fills a gap by bringing together information that otherwise would not be available online for days or weeks after an election or would be scattered across hundreds of local websites. In the absence of national standards or consistent expectations across states, it also ensures that data is presented in a standard format, uses standard terms, and is subject to rigorous quality control.“, adds the agency.
Thousands of people to report the results
AP has already counted the number of advance votes (the number of votes, not the results). The bulk of the work began when the polling stations closed: this year, 4,000 reporters were deployed to the polling stations. The agency specifies that “un AP vote-counting reporter will be stationed in nearly every county election office on Election Day, as well as in major cities and towns, collecting data directly from the source.“
The Associated Press also says it monitors, among other things, the websites of states and counties that publish their results on the web. It will continually update the results. “On general election nights, the AP may have five or six potential sources of election results in each county and can choose between them based on which is most up-to-date and accurate.” At RTBF, we chose to follow AP.
Everyone has their own source…
That said, we still mentioned CNN’s results in our live commentary when the private channel confirmed Trump’s victory in the state of Georgia. AP followed a few minutes later. Because if we look elsewhere, we find very different figures from one media to another. Around 10 a.m. this Wednesday morning, the distribution differed depending on whether the media were fed from AP or from the Edison Research for the National Election Pool.
But the American editorial staff also makes their own projections at the same time. Newspapers like the New York Times or the Washington Post mobilize statisticians and data specialists to find out which way the tide is turning before the final result is announced.
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