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Fifty-one separate elections – one in each state and one in Washington, DC. Each with different rules and regulations, and no national election commission to tell the world who wins. How, then, can we quickly and precisely determine who won the highest office in the country?
That’s where the news media come in – and has been since 1848, when the Associated Press declared Zachary Taylor’s election as president.
The Electoral College actually chooses the president under the US Constitution, acting through a process that begins with popular votes throughout the republic. But his job takes weeks. In this strange vacuum created by a federalist system and aggravated – in the 1800s – by the slowness of the counting and communication of declarations, the media outlets appeared as major players at first, collecting and adding up the votes of Election officials from every state across the country then announce the winner based on that vote count.
A lot of people seem surprised by this these days, including President Donald Trump. After The Associated Press and major US television networks called the presidential race for Democrat Joe Biden, Trump tweeted: Since when is the media “calling out who will be the next president”?
Here is an overview of the creation of this system.
A FRAGMENTED PROCESS
The expectation of election results on the same day is modern, as is the notion of a single election day.
The Founding Fathers designed the Electoral College – a series of state elections to choose the president – in part because maintaining power in the states was the only way to ensure that some states would ratify the Constitution, says Alex Keyssar, voting rights expert at Harvard University. . Since the civil war, he says, rural and especially southern politicians have opposed giving any election power to the federal government.
Early in American history, elections were held over multiple days and not all states voted on the same day. It was the advent of the telegraph – and concerns that the results of one state might influence another – that led to a single presidential election day, according to David Greenberg, professor of history and journalism at the ‘Rutgers University.
After the presidential election is over, each state chooses its representatives to the Electoral College – a number based on the size of each state’s population and the number of representatives and senators it has in Congress. These representatives, who are sworn in to vote for the candidate with the most votes in that state, do not vote until December 14.
The president of the senate and the archivist must receive the certificates recording the results of the electoral vote by the fourth Wednesday in December – this year, December 23. The results of each state’s electoral votes are then sent to the newly elected Congress, which is due to meet in joint session on January 6 and announce the results.
THE ROLE OF THE MEDIA
He evolved from an instinct to report the news, but mostly because Americans didn’t want to wait for the results until mid-December.
Faced with the reality of the decentralized government structure, no one other than the media has agreed to shoulder the cost of vote tabulation, says Rick Edmonds, media business analyst at the Poynter Institute for Media Studies. The Federal Election Commission regulates certain aspects of elections but does not tabulate the votes. The gap therefore remained between the results of individual states and the country’s collective decision.
The role of the PA in collecting vote counts and analyzing data predates the Civil War. American television networks began to do their own analysis in the 1960 race between Richard Nixon and John F. Kennedy, examining the data and calling the winners one state at a time.
This year’s effort was complicated by the coronavirus pandemic. People have chosen to vote early or by mail, which slows down the vote count in some states. The race was also close in many states, making the determination of a winner slower. The big networks and the PA called the presidential race on Saturday, four days after polling day.
HOW THE RACES ARE CALLED
AP uses a 50-state network of independent stringers who collect votes from county clerks and other local officials. Other PA journalists collect the results from state or county websites, as well as through state electronic data feeds.
News organizations around the world that use AP use this tally to report results. Meanwhile, analysts and editors at AP’s decision-making office are examining this vote tally – combined with research that includes demographics, voting history, and advance poll statistics – to report the votes. winners.
On Saturday morning, PA declared Democrat Joe Biden the winner after determining that he won the race in Pennsylvania, which pushed him on to the necessary 270 electoral votes. Major US TV networks go through much the same process, using either the AP’s vote count or another vote count to call races.
“The advantage of having the free press do this is that the free press is free and independent, at least in theory,” Keyssar says. “But it has no official status and therefore its findings are not binding. This is causing confusion as we speak.
No major effort is made to get someone else to do it.
WHAT IF IT IS BAD?
Errors and problems have occurred.
In 1948, the Chicago Daily Tribune plastered “Dewey Defeats Truman” on the first page of its first edition when the first numbers gave the impression that Thomas Dewey was ahead. But the tide has turned and President Harry S. Truman defied pollsters with a shaken victory.
In 2000, major television networks and the PA called Florida for Democrat Al Gore, relying heavily on polls on election day. As the votes were counted, everyone reversed their course. The networks said Republican George W. Bush carried the state, only to later reverse that decision. The AP delayed the second appeal, deeming the race too tight. More than a month later, a 5-4 US Supreme Court stopped a recount and locked Bush’s victory
LEGAL CHALLENGES
The Trump campaign has vowed to challenge Biden’s victory in court. On Monday, Attorney General William Barr authorized federal prosecutors across the United States to prosecute “substantial allegations”, if any, of voting irregularities before the constituency certifies the election. His memo did not identify any specific cases of suspected fraud.
PA decision-making office considers legal challenges and disputes to determine whether a race can be called safely, says Sally Buzbee, editor-in-chief of the AP.
Trump’s attorney Rudy Giuliani was holding a press conference in Philadelphia on Saturday to discuss the fraud allegations when he learned that the AP and other networks had called for the race to Biden. He stressed that the media have no official role in the decision to become President of the United States.
It is true. But Edmonds said he expects the practice of the call-to-run to continue. It’s ingrained, he says, and while he thinks news agencies can improve the way, “I don’t see a case where the system hasn’t worked.
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