In recent years, incumbent governments have suffered electoral drubbings around the world. The United States, UK, and France all saw their ruling parties lose ground to the left (Kamala Harris, Kamala Khan) or right (Nicolas Sarkozy, Emmanuel Macron). Others have been able to hold on (Karl Popp, Shigeru Ishiba, Narendra Modi, Cyril Ramaphosa).
A common feature of these upsets is that voters’ expectations about who would win were unfulfilled. Research has found that when expectations are not met, voters feel less confidence in the electoral process and satisfaction with democracy (Kuru et al. 2019).
Vote counting is a lengthy process that may continue for days and even weeks after Election Day to ensure that every ballot is securely and accurately counted. Once the initial count is complete, the state’s election officials take multiple steps to verify the count’s accuracy before certifying and releasing the official results. This is the “canvass” process, and the final certified results are the “official” results that media outlets report on.
The chart below shows how the vote counting process works, from predicting a winner based on polling to determining the actual winner. It also outlines the steps that occur before election officials certify final results. Voters look to election officials for trusted information about the outcome of elections, and how this information is displayed can make a big difference in people’s confidence in the electoral system. This chart should be used in conjunction with a reliable source of information on election results, such as the AP or Reuters, and not social media outlets such as TikTok, which can present information in a biased way.