Decisive night: When US election results to be announced?

Specifics of announcing US election results

In the United States, the winner of the presidential election is announced by the media first, long before the official results are announced. This is a tribute to a tradition that dates back to the mid-nineteenth century.

The election results in each individual state are reported by the authorities, but it is the media that summarizes them. The United States has a specific election system where the population formally votes not for a candidate directly, but for electors, who then have to elect the president. So from a legal point of view, separate elections are held simultaneously in each state. As the state authorities calculate the results, the media reduce them to a single denominator.

How media works when announcing election results

Since 1990, most of the leading media in the United States have formed the National Election Pool (NEP). It includes ABC, CBS, CNN, NBC, and Reuters. The pool has a long-standing agreement with Edison Research.

In 2016, the Associated Press left the pool to develop its product called AP VoteCast. The poll is conducted by the AP-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research. The authors of the study do not call it an exit poll. However, it is used by many other news agencies. These include Fox News, NPR, PBS, Univision, USA Today, and the Wall Street Journal.

AP VoteCast takes into account live vote counts, as well as voter registration, early voting, preliminary results, election rules, and the release of results.

The methodologies used by these two pools are different, but their principles are the same: declare the result when it is clear that the leading candidate in each state cannot be defeated.

When election results will be announced

Polling stations have different opening hours in each state. Generally, they are open from 5 -7 a.m. to 6-8 p.m. However, this is overlaid by a large number of time zones. While polling stations are closed in some states, they may still be open in others.

The counting of votes at polling stations is automatic and fast because it is done not by election commissioners, but by special machines. However, the counting of ballots sent by mail may be delayed. They first need to be opened and validated.

Some states allow such ballots to be processed before Election Day, while others allow them to be processed only on Election Day. For example, in the 2020 election, the winner in the key state of Pennsylvania could not be announced until 4 days after the election.

But in general, preliminary data on the winner of the election usually becomes known around 11 p.m. US Eastern Time, after the polls close in the western US states. However, given Kamala Harris' and Donald Trump's absolutely equal performance in the polls, it is likely that the winner of the election will not be known very soon.

The ratings of the two key candidates in the US election have remained equal for a long time within the statistical error. At the same time, there is a decrease in the number of those who have not yet decided on their choice.

Earlier, RBC-Ukraine explained the specifics of the US electoral system and why it is not necessary to get the most votes to win.

Also, read about the role of the Ukrainian diaspora in the US election.

Sources: AP, Fox News, CNN, ABC News.