In the United States, on election nights, no screen reveals the name of the winner at 8 p.m. as is the case in France. No official federal body, no national electoral commission gives the results of the vote in this country-continent in four time zones, where each state is responsible for organizing the elections.
Americans can remain in the dark for hours, even days, before the decision on the winner is made. And to do this they must rely on the media and more precisely on a few of them, whose precision and reliability have proven themselves over the years.
In 2020, due to the explosion of postal voting, the counting and communication of results was delayed in some swing statesthese pivotal states with generally close results and which can switch from one camp to another in each election. A site, Decision Desk HQ, announced Joe Biden's victory shortly before 9 a.m. (East Coast time, or 3 p.m. in Paris) on November 6. On November 7, three and a half days after the election, the main American television channels finally announced the Democrat's victory: CNN was the first, at 11:24 a.m. Eastern time. It was quickly followed by NBC, CBS, ABC and the Associated Press. Fox News, for its part, confirmed the result at 11:40 a.m.
The Associated Press (AP) news agency is the goldsmith on the subject. She explains that she has around 4,000 temporary correspondents across the country who collect results at the local level. Other correspondents follow announcements on official county and state websites to enter the results.
Many media rely on his authority – renewed without question since the election of 1848 – before daring the slightest prediction. It is also the main source we refer to in Monde for monitoring the results – we will also offer you, as soon as the first results are announced, a map and a graph showing the tally of electors obtained by the candidates based on AP data.
The conservative channel Fox News, with which the news agency shares a survey of 100,000 voters who voted early, is also, despite the proven political bias of some of its commentators, recognized as a reliable source. United in a consortium, other press groups – ABC News, CBS News, CNN and NBC News – rely on exit polls.
