WASHINGTON (AP) — There’s no easier way to count votes than to count them.

The Associated Press has been recording the results of national, state and local elections since 1848. Broadly speaking, the process is the same today as it was then: Vote count reporters collect election results at the local level as soon as polls close and then send them. The AP must compile, verify and report those results.

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

The United States does not have a body that collects and publishes nationwide election results. Elections are administered locally by thousands of offices in accordance with standards set by states. In many cases, the states themselves do not even offer up-to-date tracking of election results.

AP plays a role in collecting and standardizing results.

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

Data collection efforts begin as Americans begin voting; That means well before November 5 this year in nearly every race.

The AP is requesting information from state and local election administrators on the number of absentee ballots requested and the number of early votes cast once voting begins. (You can follow these numbers Here.) These figures do not include results that are not released until polls close, but they can provide valuable information about people voting leading up to Election Day.

The massive effort begins when the polls close, with about 4,000 AP vote-count reporters fanning out to voting precincts and county election offices. An AP vote counting reporter will be assigned to nearly every county election office, as well as major cities and towns, on Election Day, collecting data directly from the source.

Many vote count reporters have a significant amount of experience gathering accurate vote count information for the AP. In the last general elections, approximately half of them had been working in the EP for at least 10 years. Hundreds more have experience collecting vote count data in primary and general elections.

They work with local election officials to collect results directly from the counties or areas where results were first counted and collected and send them by phone or electronically as quickly as possible. The results are transmitted to the AP’s vote entry center, which employs another 800 to 900 people.

Because many states and counties display election results on their websites, the AP monitors those sites and enters the results into the same system. The vote entry center also receives feeds of results directly from election officials where they are provided and uses automated tools to aggregate results from official government websites.

In most cases, counties will report more votes as they count votes throughout the night. The AP is constantly updating its count as these results are released. In the general election, the AP will provide up to 21,000 race updates per hour.

Errors can occur, such as when testing data is accidentally posted on a state’s website or when a broadcaster accidentally alters two candidates’ vote totals. Having multiple sources helps the AP understand where these errors are occurring and often prevents them from being published.

Sometimes counting errors need to be corrected, such as when a county corrects its own data or someone accidentally entered an extra zero. In some cases, this can lead to a decrease in the total number of votes counted once the issue is identified and resolved.

That’s why it helps to have multiple update sources.

On general election nights, the AP may have up to five or six sources of potential election results in each county and choose from them depending on which is the most current and accurate. These multiple sources not only serve as backups for each other; They also provide a check to ensure reported vote totals are accurate.

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