CEIR Explains: How Election Results Coverage Really Works
This interactive shows how news outlets cover election results: gathering data to make unofficial calls about the predicted winner of each race. The map of the process below shows what news media are doing while election administration processes are playing out, from before polls close until election officials release official certified results. Different colors show whether each step is public-facing or happening behind-the-scenes.
Click on each box for more information. For more information on how to vote, voters should visit vote.gov or ask their local election officials for dates, times, and voting locations in their area.
Research by Kira Flemke, Kyle Yoder, and April Tan, with assistance from Research Interns Jordan Phan, Jane Wright, and Carly Pyles
About this Series
The CEIR Explains series outlines the steps in running an election—taken by voters, election administrators, the news media, and others. Each explainer aims to provide better understanding of the processes of democracy.
Interested in learning more? Check out CEIR’s explainers on “How a Ballot Becomes a Vote” and “What Happens After We Vote”
How does the news media make a call about the winner of an election?
At 7:00 p.m. Eastern Time on Election Day, the first polls close in the Eastern Time Zone and people turn to the news media for updates. Maps and numbers fill the screen, changing every few minutes as commentators discuss the latest developments.
It feels like we are seeing official election results—but in fact, these are unofficial estimates, incomplete and sometimes more forecast than reality. Official results are not released—and have never been released—until several days or even weeks after Election Day.
So how do news outlets come up with these unofficial estimates to make “calls” about the winner of an election? The key steps of this process are explained in detail below.
Voters cast ballots.
While polls are open, eligible voters can vote in person or return mail ballots.
Some voters cast ballots before Election Day through early in-person voting or mail voting. Deadlines for these methods vary by state. In some states, mail ballots may arrive and be counted after Election Day if they are postmarked on or before Election Day.
For more information on all the ways voters can cast a ballot, see CEIR’s explainer on “How a Ballot Becomes a Vote.”
For additional information:
- Center for Election Innovation and Research, “The Expansion of Voting Before Election Day, 2000–2024”
- Center for Election Innovation and Research, “Dates for 2024 Early In-Person and Mail Voting”
- National Conference of State Legislatures, “Voting Outside the Polling Place“
- USA.gov, “Voting on Election Day”
News media conduct exit polls.
While people are still voting, the news media conduct exit polls of voters who have already cast their ballots. These exit polls help news outlets forecast and analyze election results.
Before Election Day, members of the news media interview people who have already voted early in person or by mail. These interviews are usually conducted by phone or online. On Election Day, members of the news media interview voters as they leave the polls. To avoid influencing people who have not yet cast their ballot, exit poll data are not shared publicly until after polls close. Some news outlets have shifted away from traditional exit polls, and instead rely on surveys conducted online, by phone, or through the mail before Election Day.
No matter how the questions are asked, the content remains the same. These surveys ask randomly selected voters to voluntarily share who they voted for, details about themselves, and their opinions on certain issues. Like all polls, these have a margin of error.
For additional information:
- American Association for Public Opinion Research, “Explaining Exit Polls”
- Associated Press, “How AP VoteCast works”
- Edison Research, “Election Day Coverage”
- Pew Research Center, “Just how does the general election exit poll work, anyway?”
News media track the number of early in-person and mail ballots cast.
Election officials monitor how many early in-person and mail ballots are cast in the days and weeks leading up to Election Day. Officials release to the public the total number of votes cast early in person and by mail, but no information about voters’ choices is released by election officials until after polls close. The news media tracks the total number of votes cast early in person and by mail to inform their projections about each election.
For additional information:
- Center for Election Innovation and Research, “Data Dive: Timelines for Pre-Processing Mail Ballots”
- CNN, “What the early voting data can and can’t tell us about Election Day”
- Election Lab, “What to Expect from Early Voting in the 2024 General Election”
- National Conference of State Legislatures, “When Absentee/Mail Ballot Processing and Counting Can Begin”
Election workers count votes.
After voters cast their ballots, election workers begin the process of counting votes to determine election results.
Ballots cast on Election Day are counted after the polls close. Some states allow local officials to begin counting early in-person and mail ballots before polls close, so long as they follow state rules to keep ballots and results secret until polls close. No matter when counting begins, results are not released until after the polls close.
Votes are typically counted at the local level, often by precinct. Many states allow outside groups or individuals to observe part or all of the counting process. Observers may include members of the public, political parties, the media, or other groups.
Vote counting is a process that extends beyond Election Day. Counting may continue for days or even weeks after Election Day to ensure each ballot is securely and accurately counted. This includes mail ballots, military ballots, and provisional ballots. Official results are not known until all ballots are counted and the results certified.
Any results reported after the close of polls but before the certification of the results are unofficial. For more information on vote counting and certification, see CEIR’s explainer on “What Happens After We Vote.”
For additional information:
- Bolts, “Who Counts Our Elections?”
- Brennan Center for Justice, “Roadmap to the Official Count in the 2024 Election: Tabulation“
- National Conference of State Legislatures, “When Absentee/Mail Ballot Processing and Counting Can Begin”
- National Conference of State Legislatures, “Policies for Election Observers”
- Verified Voting, “The Verifier – Mail Ballot Tabulation – 2024”
Reporters collect partial results as they are available.
Any results reported between the close of polls and certification of the results are unofficial.
Reporters for the news media collect unofficial results in real time at local counting locations and from sources like government websites. Media outlets dedicate a huge amount of resources to this effort, and some even work together or outsource tasks to keep up. As a result, most news outlets will have similar vote counts throughout this stage. However, at any given time, there may be small differences from one outlet to the next. This is because each outlet allocates their resources differently and may get updates from some places faster than others. These differences only represent the reporting decisions of media outlets. They do not reflect inconsistencies in the actual counting process.
After the unofficial results are collected by reporters, they are entered into the vote reporting systems used by each media outlet. Data are compared between multiple sources to ensure accuracy. This collection process informs each media outlet’s prediction of a winner (often referred to as a “call”). Since a call only reflects a prediction and not an official result, this collection process continues after a call is made for hours, days, or even weeks until election workers have counted all ballots and the official results have been certified.
For additional information:
- Associated Press, “How AP counts the vote”
- Bipartisan Policy Center, “The Results You See on Election Night are Always Unofficial”
- Bipartisan Policy Center, “How Media Outlets Call Races from Unofficial Election Results”
- Brennan Center for Justice, “Roadmap to the Official Count in the 2024 Election: Reporting Unofficial Results“
- U.S. Election Assistance Commission, “Election Night Report (ENR) Systems”
- NBC, “How Election Data Is Collected”
- NBC, “How votes get counted and reported on election night — and how NBC News gathers and checks the data”
Vote reporting systems link data sources.
Vote reporting systems link data sources to track the election and predict the outcome. The specifics of these systems are unique to each media outlet, but they all use similar data sources. These data include the results of exit polls, the total number of early in-person and mail votes cast before Election Day, the partial results collected by reporters as they are released after polls close, and patterns from past elections. Media outlets collect this information for races across the country.
The data in vote reporting systems are fed into statistical models that aim to predict the winner of each race. The specifics of each statistical model are unique to each news outlet. Regardless of the specifics, each outlet’s model calculates the same two important numbers for projecting results:
- the “race spread,” or the difference between the leading candidates based on available data, and
- the “expected turnout,” which is an estimate of the total votes cast based on the number of eligible voters, votes cast before Election Day, and turnout in past elections.
These two numbers help media outlets track the progress of the election and make a prediction of who will win.
For additional information:
- Associated Press, “The AP has called winners in elections for more than 170 years. Here’s how it’s done”
- CNN, “It’s not magic, it’s math. Here’s how CNN makes election projections”
- Election Lab, “What to Expect from Early Voting in the 2024 General Election”
- NBC, “How the NBC News Decision Desk makes election calls in 2024 races”
- Vox, “How the press calls elections, explained”
Analysts project the outcome.
News outlets use the calculations from their vote reporting system to make a prediction about the outcome of an election before all of the votes are counted. Each outlet has teams of analysts that work through the night and into the days following the election to make predictions based on incomplete data and different sets of assumptions. These projections often change as reporters continue to collect partial results as they are released. To avoid causing uncertainty and confusion, news outlets do not make their projections public until they are ready to make a call—reporters don’t know what the projections will be until analysts announce them.
In order to protect this analysis from outside pressures, election analysts at each organization who make the projections and calls are typically restricted in their access to the outside world. Analysts are asked to make decisions based only on the information in their own vote reporting system, regardless of what other organizations—or even other members of their own organization—are doing.
For additional information:
- Associated Press, “The AP has called winners in elections for more than 170 years. Here’s how it’s done”
- CNN, “It’s not magic, it’s math. Here’s how CNN makes election projections”
- NBC, “How the NBC News Decision Desk makes election calls in 2024 races”
- Vox, “How the press calls elections, explained”
News outlets give live updates.
After the polls close in different states, news outlets give updates while election workers continue counting votes everywhere polls have closed. News outlets keep viewers informed as the count goes on, but nothing is official until every vote is counted and the results are certified.
As part of these updates, news outlets often talk about two numbers:
- the “percent of votes reported,” which is the share of votes that have been counted out of the total number of votes expected by the news outlet, and
- the “percent of precincts reporting,” which is the number of voting locations in a jurisdiction that have begun to report results out of all the voting locations in that jurisdiction.
Each of these numbers have their limitations. The number of Election Day precincts reporting vote counts may not include early in-person or mail ballots that are counted separately in some places. No one—including news outlets—knows for sure how many votes have been cast until the counting process is completed and checked by election officials.
For additional information:
- Associated Press, “How AP uses expected vote instead of ‘precincts reporting’ when determining a winner”
- New York Times, “How Do Election Results Work?”
News outlets make call of predicted winner.
A news outlet makes a “call” of the predicted winner of a race when their analysis makes them sufficiently confident in their prediction.
However, the call is still just an unofficial prediction. No election results are official until all votes are counted and the results are certified by election officials, days or weeks later.
When exit polls and initial analysis show a big lead, news outlets may call a race soon after polls close. If a race appears close, news outlets will wait until nearly all votes have been counted, which can take several days. No matter when a news outlet makes its call, a call is still just an unofficial prediction that does not impact how votes are counted.
Even though different news organizations may get their data from similar sources, they each make separate decisions about how and when to call each race.
For additional information:
- Associated Press, “How we declare winners”
- Associated Press, “If the polls just closed, how can AP already declare a winner?”
- NBC, “How the NBC News Decision Desk makes election calls in 2024 races”
- Vox, “How the press calls elections, explained”
News outlets continue to give updates.
After an outlet has called a race, they will likely dedicate less time to coverage of the ongoing vote counting for that race. However, election workers continue to count votes until all votes have been counted. Reporters continue to collect results to update the outlet’s tracking towards completed vote counting.
For additional information:
- Associated Press, “How AP uses expected vote instead of ‘precincts reporting’ when determining a winner”
- New York Times, “How Do Election Results Work?”
Election officials verify results.
After the initial count of all votes cast in a race is complete, election officials take multiple steps to verify the count’s accuracy before certification of the official results. The state’s election officials then certify and release the official results.
This process often goes on for days or even weeks after Election Day to ensure that vote counting is verified and transparent so voters can have confidence in the official results. Election results are only official once they have been certified.
For more information on how election officials verify and certify election results, see CEIR’s explainer on “What Happens After We Vote.”
Reporters collect full results.
Reporters collect the full results of each race once every ballot has been counted. This is often long after a race has been called based on the news outlet’s prediction. As a result, these full results are not always covered by news outlets because they are not considered new information for an audience who heard their prediction of the winner days or weeks earlier.
For additional information:
- Associated Press, “How AP counts the vote”
- Bipartisan Policy Center, “How Media Outlets Call Races from Unofficial Election Results”
- Brennan Center for Justice, “Roadmap to the Official Count in the 2024 Election: Reporting Unofficial Results“
- U.S. Election Assistance Commission, “Election Night Report (ENR) Systems”
- NBC, “How Election Data Is Collected”
Projections are checked against full results.
As a final step in their election coverage, news outlets often check their projections against the full results as they are available for each race. Analysts compare results from their statistical models to the final results of each race to see how close their predictions were to the actual outcome. This allows news outlets to further refine and improve their statistical models in time to cover the next election.
For additional information:
- Associated Press, “How we declare winners”
- Politico, “He Runs Fox News’ Decision Desk. Here’s How He Sees Election Night Coming.”
- Vox, “How the press calls elections, explained”