How Do Election Results Work?

The 2022 major season begins on Tuesday with elections in Texas, and The New York Instances will probably be reporting the outcomes reside on its web site and apps. Right here’s the way it all works.

The Outcomes

How does The Instances get reside election outcomes?

Our reside outcomes are supplied by The Related Press. To supply its outcomes, The A.P. combines knowledge feeds from state and county web sites with on-the-ground reporting by greater than 4,000 correspondents who collect vote tallies from county clerks and different native officers after polls shut. The Instances has additionally often revealed knowledge from different outcomes suppliers.

How usually are the outcomes up to date on election night time?

When The A.P. will get stories from states, it checks the vote totals for potential inconsistencies or errors. Then it sends the up to date knowledge to The Instances and different prospects about each one to a few minutes. Calls projecting winners are despatched instantly.

Instances journalists and engineers have written software program that robotically downloads and publishes the outcomes inside seconds. Don’t fear about refreshing the web page — the outcomes will replace robotically.

Why do I see completely different vote counts on completely different web sites?

Not each information group will get its election outcomes from The A.P. like The Instances does. There are two different election outcomes suppliers utilized by information organizations: Edison Analysis and Determination Desk HQ. State or native election officers usually show their very own outcomes as nicely.

These sources can have completely different counts on election night time, relying on the pace and scope of their reporting on a selected race. The outcomes from all suppliers could not match till all of the votes are counted.

How does The Instances monitor the share of votes reported in a given election?

For years, election outcomes suppliers used the share of precincts reporting to assist in giving readers a way of what number of votes stay to be counted. Not anymore. The rise of mail-in voting and early voting has made the measure all however ineffective in lots of states, since absentee votes are often not counted by precinct. This has usually left readers and analysts at a loss about what number of votes stay to be counted.

This 12 months, The Instances will probably be publishing its personal estimates for the variety of remaining votes.

Early within the night time, these estimates will probably be based mostly on our pre-election expectations for the eventual turnout, based mostly on prior elections and early voting knowledge. As soon as The A.P. stories {that a} county has largely accomplished its rely, we’ll evaluate the reported vote with our pre-election expectations and steadily revise our expectations for the eventual turnout. We anticipate these estimates will probably be higher than the outdated “precincts reporting” metric, however they’re nonetheless solely estimates. They won’t often mirror official data on the variety of remaining votes.

What’s a precinct?

A precinct is the smallest degree at which election outcomes are reported. A precinct could also be a couple of metropolis blocks or a complete county.

The Winners

How does The Instances name winners?

In nearly each race, we depend on The A.P.’s calls. It employs a staff of analysts, researchers and race callers who’ve a deep understanding of the states the place they declare winners.

Along with total vote totals, race callers take note of county-level votes, votes by kind of poll and the place there are ballots left to rely.

The A.P. describes its decision-making course of as “aimed toward figuring out the reply to a single query: Can the trailing candidates catch the chief?” And solely when the reply is an unquestionable “no” will The A.P. name the race.

In a really small variety of high-profile contests, The Instances independently scrutinizes and evaluates A.P. race calls earlier than making a projection.

How can The Instances name a race earlier than any votes are counted?

Information organizations can mission a winner, even with no outcomes, if the race was not intently contested or the celebration or candidate has a historical past of constant wins within the county or state. In some instances, The A.P. additionally depends on the outcomes of a pre-election survey to assist decide.

Most main information media organizations, together with The A.P., wait till polls are closed earlier than calling a winner.

The Maps

Why does my state’s election map look as if it’s dominated by a candidate though that individual is behind within the vote totals?

The primary kind of map used on The Instances’s outcomes pages options areas which might be shaded completely different colours. This is named a choropleth map. For major races, counties are coloured to signify the candidate who’s main within the vote tally there.

Choropleth maps are nice for rapidly understanding geographic patterns and figuring out leaders in a particular county you care about. However as a result of the geographic space of a county is probably not in proportion to the variety of voters residing there, they aren’t all the time good at indicating the winner of a complete state.

That’s one cause The Instances’s major outcomes pages additionally embody one other kind of map: one which makes use of circles to point out the dimensions of the lead that the successful candidate has in every county.

These maps typically make it exhausting to see the leads to counties the place there are too few votes or the place the vote may be very shut, however they’re good at displaying inhabitants facilities the place numerous voters could have pushed a candidate into the general lead.