WASHINGTON (AP) — There’s no easier way to count votes than to count votes.

The Associated Press has been tabulating national, state and local election results since 1848. In general terms, the process is the same today as it was then: Vote-counting reporters collect election results at the local level as soon as the polling stations close, then submit them. these results so that the AP can collate, verify and report them.

This year, the AP will count votes in about 5,000 elections across the United States, from the presidency and Congress to state legislatures and ballot measures.

The United States does not have a national agency responsible for collecting and publishing election results. Elections are administered locally, by thousands of offices, according to standards set by the states. In many cases, states themselves don’t even offer up-to-date tracking of election results.

The PA plays a role in collecting and standardizing results.

The AP vote count fills a gap by bringing together information that would otherwise not be available online for days or weeks after an election or that is scattered across hundreds of local websites. Without national standards or consistent expectations across states, it also ensures that data is in a standard format, uses standard terms, and is subject to rigorous quality control.

Data collection efforts begin when Americans start voting, which in almost all elections means well before November 5 of this year.

The AP is requesting information from state and local election administrators on the number of absentee ballots requested and the number of early votes cast as voting begins. (You can track these numbers here.) These numbers do not contain results, which are not released until after the polls close, but they can provide valuable information about who voted on Election Day.

The big effort begins once the polls close, when about 4,000 AP vote-counting reporters fan out to polling places and county election offices. An AP vote count reporter will be stationed in nearly every county election office on Election Day, as well as in key cities and towns, collecting data directly from the source.

Many vote counting journalists have extensive experience collecting accurate vote counting information for the AP. At the time of the last general election, about half of them had worked for the PA for at least 10 years. Hundreds more have experience collecting vote count data in primary and general elections.

They work with local election officials to collect results directly from the counties or precincts where they are first counted and collected and submit them, by telephone or electronically, as soon as they are available. The results are transmitted to the AP’s vote-entry center, which employs an additional 800 to 900 people.

Because many states and counties post election results on websites, the AP monitors those sites and enters the results into the same system. The Vote Entry Center also receives results directly from election officials where they are provided, and uses automated tools to collect results from official government websites.

In many cases, counties will report more votes as they count ballots throughout the night. The AP continually updates its tally as these results are released. During a general election, the AP will make up to 21,000 race updates per hour.

Errors can occur, such as accidentally posting test data on a state’s website or accidentally transposing two candidates’ vote totals. Having multiple sources helps the AP determine where these errors are occurring and often prevents them from being published.

Sometimes counting errors need to be corrected, such as when a county corrected its data or someone accidentally entered an extra zero. In some cases, this may result in a drop in the total number of votes counted when the issue is identified and resolved.

This is why it is useful to have multiple sources of updates.

On general election nights, the AP may have as many as 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. These multiple sources not only serve as backup for each other; they also provide oversight to ensure that reported vote totals are correct.

To stay up to date with all the latest news as it develops, follow WCTV on Facebook And X (Twitter).

Do you have a tip or see an error that needs to be fixed? Write to us here. Please include the article title in your message.

Keep up to date with all the headlines on the WCTV News app. Click here to download it now.

Copyright 2024 WCTV. All rights reserved.