Why and how AP counts the vote for thousands of US elections

WASHINGTON (AP) — There isn’t an easier way to count votes than to count the votes.

The Associated Press has been tallying results in national, state and local elections since 1848. In broad terms, the process is the same today as it was then: Vote count reporters collect election results at a local level as soon as polls close, then submit those results for the AP to collate, verify and report.

This year, AP will count the votes in about 5,000 contested races around the United States, from the presidency and Congress to state legislatures and ballot measures.

The U.S. doesn’t have a nationwide body that collects and releases election results. Elections are administered locally, by thousands of offices, following standards set by the states. In many cases, the states themselves don’t even offer up-to-date tracking of election results.

The AP plays a role in collecting and standardizing the results.

The AP’s vote count fills a gap by bringing together information that otherwise might not be available online for days or weeks after an election or is scattered across hundreds of local websites. Without national standards or consistent expectations across states, it also ensures the data is in a standard format, uses standard terms and undergoes rigorous quality control.

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