November 4, 2022
I’ve never done this. But I just feel like it’s important to clarify things for a lot of people who are confused.
I just did a video about how votes are counted on election night and why it takes time to count them. And I got hundreds of comments saying the basically the same thing.
Something like — we’ve always known who won on election night. Things just changed in 2020.
I am going to just list all the ways in which that’s completely inaccurate based on our country’s history.
And I’m going to start by telling you a fact that might blow your mind.
You’ve never known the official winner of an election on election night. What you’ve known is the projected winner that the media announces on tv, on radio, in a newspaper and more recently online.
And there are many well documented elections in the United States where the media did *not* call the election for a candidate on election night and though the media generally has an excellent record of projecting the winner correctly, there’s one famous instance where the media projected the wrong winner.
Let’s start there. In 1948 all the polling had Harry Truman losing to Thomas Dewey. On election night the media projected Thomas Dewey had beat Harry Truman. It wasn’t until more votes were counted overnight that Truman found out at 4 in the morning the next day he was the projected winner. Here he is holding the newspaper saying his opponent beat him. Which was wrong. But if that’s too far back in time for you, let’s talk about more modern elections, in 1960 the election was so close, the media didn’t call President Kennedy’s victory over Nixon until the next morning, 1976 same thing the media didn’t call the election for Jimmy Carter until the next morning. And don’t get me started with the 2000 election when we didn’t know who won between George W. Bush and Al Gore for more than a month! (also 1848, 1876, 1884, 1888, 1916)
So i’m sure you’re wondering – well, how does the media project the winner?
This is what you’re used to seeing on tv. Anchors projecting or “calling” a winner on election night. Each media outlet has their own methodology for how they do that, many work together and the projections are based on several things.
Raw vote count totals from election officials, in some cases, exit polls and also modeling data based on votes that have already been reported by county election officials and those that are still left to be counted.
You have to understand an election isn’t official until it’s certified by the state. And that *never* happens on election night. Before the vote can be certified, there’s a canvas. A canvas happens at both the local and state level. And it’s an accounting of all the ballots including provisional and absentee ballots. Each state has its own deadline for when a canvas needs to be complete.
Don’t forget there are also recounts that can be done either because a candidate wants one or because it’s required by law in a close race. And then – there’re the lawsuits challenging the results. Those also can delay the official results of an election.
And if you’ve made it this far in the video – congratulations! Thanks for sticking it out. If you want help keeping track of all the projected winners on election night, i put together a comprehensive midterm election guide. Grab your copy in my Stan store here.
