By james art 
Voters have cast their ballots, the ballots will be counted and soon the results will begin to arrive. But how will the races be announced on election night? Deciding a winner in any of the thousands of US races, from voting on issues like abortion and voting rights to the presidential race and all the congressional, state and local races in between, is a big deal. That’s why NPR is partnering with the Associated Press — and has been for many years — to ensure races are called accurately.
The Associated Press has been calling races for a long time. The organization’s adjudication bureau has been calling races since 1848, and even now, more than 170 years later, it keeps those calls pretty simple. Here’s how the AP explains its competition call process:
The race is based on verifiable facts, primarily from the AP vote count, which is collected by state and local election offices across the country.
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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 leading and which precincts the votes are coming from.
At the same time, AP spent the whole night trying to find out how many ballots were uncounted and from which districts.
Once the AP has an idea of how many ballots are absent versus how many have been counted, it can begin to tabulate the probability of a particular winner winning a particular race based on many different factors: where the absent ballots are coming from what the structure of these communities and even how the individual chose to vote.
From NPR’s side, once the AP calls a race, we’ll alert our broadcast and digital audiences in our special coverage and live blog, and we’ll make sure our hundreds of member stations have access to that information as well. We’ll use AP data to populate our election results pages so viewers can follow along in real time.
How does AP announce races when not all votes are counted?
Sometimes races can be called without all – or even most – of the votes being counted. How is that possible? The Associated Press explains that it uses the same calculation of ballots, external factors and other data to inform its decisions.
In almost all cases, races can be declared long before 100% of the votes are counted. The AP’s team of campaign reporters and analysts will announce the race as soon as a clear winner can be determined. This may sound obvious, but it is the guiding principle that guides the organization’s campaigning process.
AP competitive calls are not predictions and are not based on speculation. They are declarations based on analysis of voting results and other election data that a candidate is the winner and that no other candidate in the race will be able to overtake the winner after all the votes have been counted.
Sounds simple, right? The AP will not announce contests until “a clear winner can be determined.” But that doesn’t always require all the votes for every precinct for every race. Sometimes it all comes down to math: Can this candidate realistically win with the votes remaining in the seats yet to be counted? And that raises another, really important question. AP – and therefore NPR – will not project races. The organization will wait until it is certain to pay the raises, which is why its race calls are trusted by hundreds of news organizations, including NPR. Because the AP waits until there is a guarantee, even if it means waiting a little longer be of course.
From an ethical standpoint, NPR will not cover a race just because a candidate has declared victory, nor will NPR use a concession speech or statement to solely follow a race. This also applies to the Associated Press:
AP calls are never made based on lobbying by campaigns or political parties or announcements made by other news organizations or candidate victory speeches. While it will never call a winner based on a concession speech, in some cases the concession is the final piece of the puzzle in confirming that there won’t be a recount in a close race.
While election night is the beginning of these races, it likely won’t be the end. Races will continue to be announced until a presidential election winner is determined and the race invitations will be tabulated to determine the balance of power in the Senate and House of Representatives. NPR will cover all the major race talk and provide ongoing on-air and online coverage of how the 2024 election will shake out.
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