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Voters have been voting, ballots will be counted, and soon results will start to come in. But how will races be called on election night? Determining a winner in any of the thousands of races across the U.S., from ballot measures on issues like abortion rights and voting, to the presidential race and all the congressional, state and local races in between, is a big job. That’s why NPR partners with The Associated Press — and has for many years — to ensure that races are called accurately.
The Associated Press has been calling races for a long time. The organization’s decision desk has called races since 1848 and even now, more than 170 years later, it keeps those calls pretty simple. Here’s how the AP explains its race-calling process:
Race calls are based on provable facts, primarily from the AP’s vote count, which is compiled from state and local election offices around the nation.
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As more and more ballots are tabulated starting on election night, the AP will monitor the incoming vote at the county level and analyze who is in the lead and what areas the votes are coming from.
At the same time, the AP tries to determine throughout the night how many ballots are uncounted and from what areas.
Once AP has an idea of how many ballots are outstanding versus how many have been counted, it can start to tabulate the likelihood of a certain winner being victorious in a certain contest based on a lot of different factors: where the ballots that are outstanding are coming from, what the makeup of those communities looks like and even how the individual chose to vote.
For NPR’s part, once the AP calls a race, we will alert our broadcast and digital audiences on our special coverage and live blog and ensure that our hundreds of member stations also have access to that information. We will use AP’s data to populate our election results pages so viewers can keep track in real time.
How does AP call races when not all votes have been counted?
Sometimes, races might be called without all — or even most — of the votes counted. How is that possible? The Associated Press explains that it uses that same calculation of ballots, external factors and other data to inform its decisions.
In almost all cases, races can be called well before 100% of the votes have been counted. The AP’s team of election journalists and analysts will call a race as soon as a clear winner can be determined. That may sound obvious, but it is the guiding principle that drives the organization’s election race-calling process.
The AP’s race calls are not predictions and are not based on speculation. They are declarations based on an analysis of vote results and other election data that one candidate has emerged as the winner and that no other candidate in the race will be able to overtake the winner once all the votes have been counted.
It sounds simple, right? The AP won’t call races until “a clear winner can be determined.” But that doesn’t always require all of the votes for every precinct for every race. Sometimes it’s all about the math: Can this candidate feasibly win with the votes outstanding in the places they are yet to be counted? And that raises another, really important point. The AP — and therefore NPR — will not project races. The organization will wait until it has certainty to call races and that is why its race calls are trusted by hundreds of news organizations, including NPR. Because the AP waits until there is surety, even if it means waiting just a bit longer to be sure.
On an ethical note, NPR will not make race calls just because a candidate declares victory, nor will NPR use a concession speech or statement to solely follow a race call either. That is true of The Associated Press as well:
AP race calls are never made based on lobbying from campaigns or political parties or announcements made by other news organizations, or on candidate victory speeches. Although it will never call a winner based on a concession speech, in some cases, a concession is the final piece of the puzzle in confirming that there will be no recount in a close race.
While election night is the start of these race calls, it likely will not be the end. Races will continue to be called until a winner can be determined in the presidential election and race calls will be tabulated to determine balance of power in the Senate and the House of Representatives. NPR will cover all major race calls and provide ongoing coverage on air and online of just how the 2024 election shakes out.
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