I have a question about the polls closing and announcing results.

[Peacetrain]

Will they announce the states vote totals as they come in from those states that have closed in the east.. or will they wait until the last state has closed its polls before starting to announce vote totals?

I get confused about this every 4 years. I understand they will not predict a winner until the final polls close, but I can't remember if they announce vote totals as they come in or not.


And if this has been addressed in another thread.. I apologize, I did not see it!

[glowing]

1. Yes, as the state goes, it will be called. By 9pm, we could have a winner.

But don't let up.. make sure everyone gets to the polls.. very important for Prop 8 out in California.

[Peacetrain]

4. Thanks, its like changing the clocks.. spring forward fall back..

I can never remember.

[Tallison]

2. Results are revealed as each state closes n/t

[BrklynLiberal]

3. Unfortunately, they do not wait for all the polls to close to announce results.

Therefore, there could be voters out west who feel that their vote may not be worth as much as that of an easterner, since results are being made public before they have even voted.
Supposed Obama has secured enough EVs before some guy on the west coast has voted. What does that say to him about the value of his vote.
I do not think that any results should be made public until ALL the polls have closed. So if we on the east coast have to wait until 1AM to get some results..so be it...

[John Q. Citizen]

5. The give the vote count state by state as it's known. Since results in a state

start coming in after it's polls close, that means around 7 or 8 eastern we should start seeing numbers from states in the Eastern Time Zone.

[high density]

6. States where the exit polling makes the result obvious are often called immediately upon closing

Virginia is supposed to be the state to watch. If that goes for Barack than we're off to a good start.

[napi21]

7. AFAIK they announce the results as they get them, and project a winner of a State

when they feel they've received enough key precinct results to feel assured the remaining results won't change the outcome. The one significant difference is Florida and whatever other States that span more than one time zone. They will wait until the polls are closed in the latest timezone before announcing any results.

I'm not sure what they will do if they have a sweep by one candidate and know absolutely there's no way for the other to win even IF States like AK & HI went completely for the losing candidate. If all the other States have been projected, or even if enough have been projected to establish ONE candidate has the 270, I don't know if the networks have even decided what they'd do in that case. It's been sooo long since something like that happened!

[RB TexLa]

8. And it only takes one network calling a state before it closes for them to all start calling them

before the polls close.