How AP uses expected vote instead of ‘precincts reporting’ when determining a winner

WASHINGTON (AP) — It’s usually possible to determine who won an election before the vote counting is 100% complete. But doing so requires determining how many ballots still need to be tabulated at any point in the vote count, and that’s not as straightforward or clear-cut as you might imagine.

In fact, it’s only gotten more complicated as elections have evolved, making traditional methods of tracking vote count progress less reliable.

What happened to ‘precincts reporting’?

For years, the most common way news organizations kept track of the progress in the vote count on election night was to calculate the percentage of precincts that had reported their results. But over the years, that method has become a less and less reliable measurement that does not reflect the realities of modern elections.

For starters, precincts throughout a state are not necessarily equal in population. Saying that 10% of precincts have yet to report could mean different things depending on which precincts are at issue. In addition, sometimes a state or county will count a precinct as reporting even if it has only reported some of its votes.

An even bigger problem is that “precincts” traditionally refer to Election Day polling places. As voting by mail and early in-person voting has gained in popularity, the “precincts reporting” measurement could be deceiving depending on how the votes are tabulated from state to state.

<bsp-list-loadmore data-module="" class=«PageListStandardB» data-gtm-region=«More election coverage» data-gtm-topic=«No Value» data-parsely-title=«Related Stories» data-is-hub-peek="" data-gtm-modulestyle=«List B»> <bsp-custom-headline custom-headline=«div»> More election coverage <use xlink:href="#link-caret"