In the United States, on election nights, no screen reveals the name of the winner at 8:00 p.m., as happens in France. No official federal body, no national electoral commission gives the results of the voting in this country-continent in four time zones, where each state is responsible for organizing the elections.
Americans can be left in the dark for hours, even days, before a decision is made on the winner. And to do this they must trust the media and, more specifically, some of them, whose accuracy and reliability have proven effective over the years.
In 2020, due to the explosion of voting by mail, the counting and communication of results was delayed in some undecided statesthese crucial states with generally close results and that can swing from one side to the other in each election. One site, Decision Desk HQ, announced Joe Biden’s victory shortly before 9 am (East Coast time, or 3 pm in Paris) on November 6. On November 7, three and a half days after the election, the major American television networks finally announced the Democratic victory: CNN was the first, at 11:24 Eastern time. NBC, CBS, ABC and the Associated Press quickly followed. Fox News, for its part, confirmed the result at 11:40 a.m.
The Associated Press (AP) news agency is the goldsmith on the subject. He explains that he has around 4,000 temporary correspondents throughout the country who collect results at the local level. Other correspondents follow announcements on official county and state websites to enter results.
Many media outlets trust in their authority – undoubtedly renewed since the elections of 1848 – before daring to make the slightest prediction. It is also the main source we refer to in World to follow the results – we will also offer you, as soon as the first results are announced, a map and a graph showing the voter count obtained by the candidates according to AP data.
The conservative channel Fox News, with which the news agency shares a survey of 100,000 voters who voted early, is also recognized as a reliable source, despite the demonstrated political bias of some of its commentators. United in a consortium, other press groups (ABC News, CBS News, CNN and NBC News) depend on exit polls.
