How does AP call elections??

On election night — or, let’s face it, more likely election week, or weeks — Americans will finally find out whom they’ve chosen to lead their nation.
But the task of reporting the results doesn’t fall to a government body or federal official. Rather, in this country, figuring out the result of the central tenet of democracy is left to the media — and especially the Associated Press, which has one of the country’s largest vote-calling operations and has been doing this work for more than 175 years.

This year, the news service will call 6,823 winners — assuming no races go to runoffs — including winners in every statewide, House and state legislative race. It’s a massive endeavor, involving more than 5,000 people, and one that the AP internally refers to as “the single largest act of journalism that exists,” says Executive Editor Julie Pace.

[queeraxolotls]

I can’t even imagine how hard it was to do this stuff before computers, even super basic ones.

[ElementalArcher]

"Elections aren't run at the federal level, which means each state has its own election law"

As a non-american, this seems so weird.

[westrim]

I'm rooting for either NASCAR or Hawaiian.

[AndrewReesonLeather]

In Australia we have an independent organisation that runs elections and compiles all the info in one place.
Because the electoral commission is fiercely independent, we don't have issues with gerrymandering etc.
Then we have one guy, employed by the public broadcaster, who calls the election. It's not officially his job, but he's the most trusted figure in the country.

[baku_m_salti]

I appreciate you guys explaining things like this! Very informative to the average voter

[supervegito]

Ya know, it seems insane how the government on a federal level doesn’t have a set of standards and procedures FOR THE VOTE OF WHO IS RUNNING THE COUNTRY. How is it we haven’t had a federal level process on counting votes

[kosinusify]

What are these select few races where you don't use AP and why?

[bebca]

Im gonna call it rn Harris 32 Trump 31 Putin 432

[theblueblazer]

This process seems really complicated. No wonder it takes so many people.

[farsight]

This is the earliest Youtube’s ever served me a video after release

[playlist]

You should have also talked about the math that goes into making the call for those who don't understand statistics well.

[chaosXPRT]

What if federal elections were federally run?

[abriannaaguilera]

"I have immense psychic damage from the US election cycle" truer words have never been spoken before or since.

[eldrago]

How do you choose which ones to use AP and which ones to use Edison Research for? Is one the budget option?

[petermoller]

Elections in Australia are run at a federal level 😊
AEC, runs them all!
USA is not the best democracy in the world 😊

[killercaos]

Plz for the love of god do more of these. They aren’t entertaining at all but the insight into how these things run and happen is interesting to me

[IrisGlowingBlue]

There's somehow so many more people involved in the election process than I thought there'd be, , which was already a lot. Civics \o/

[HowdIEvenGetHere]

This was an older short you previously posted

[veronicadoggone]

Have the WaPo universe team members voted yet?

[astrocoastalprocessor]

editing was excellent, love those highlights!!!