11/03/06

Associated Press Count Focuses on Congressional Races

Both houses of Congress appear to be up for grabs on Tuesday, Nov. 7, as America votes in the 2006 so-called“midterm” elections. Up for election are all 435 members of the U.S. House, and the Democrats have to pick up 15 seats to wrest control from the Republicans. The Democrats need to pick up six seats in the 100-member Senate to gain control there.

Thirty-six states elect governors in 2006, and there are nearly 6,000 other races, most of them for state legislatures, also on the ballots in all states and the District of Columbia.

The Associated Press has been counting the vote since 1848, when Zachary Taylor of the Whig Party defeated Democrat Lewis Cass, and the news organization will be the sole source of national returns again this year for the national newspapers, broadcasters, and in increasing numbers, media Web sites. Results will be delivered in a variety of formats, by satellite and online.

The AP is the world's oldest and largest newsgathering organization, providing content to more than 15,000 news outlets with a daily reach of 1 billion people around the world. Its multimedia services are distributed by satellite and the Internet to more than 120 nations.

Here's an explanation of how the AP will provide results in 2006 with the speed and accuracy on which its members and subscribers have learned to rely.

Q: What’s different about counting the vote this time?

A: Before this year, companies that manufactured and supplied voting equipment to counties and others were accustomed to a 5-percent turnover rate each year in the machines they had in use. This year, almost every town, city and county added new equipment, and in many cases entirely new voting systems. The turnover rate after 2004 was about 60 percent. The effects of this turnover were evident as AP counted the vote in primary elections this year. County and other election officials changed, too, in the way they report returns to the media and the public. AP stringers at the counties, cities and towns, may run into obstacles that might interrupt or slow the count. They have been trained to be persistent without interrupting the work that voting officials must do.

Q: What is involved in AP's election coverage?

A: From before dawn on Nov. 7 and continuing for the next 20 hours or more, thousands of people will be working fulltime on behalf of the AP to report the election. From exit poll interviewers to exit poll analysts, from vote count stringers to vote entry clerks, from bureau chiefs in the states to supervisors in New York and Washington — all will be part of a precisely calibrated plan designed to report election results accurately.

Q: How will the votes be counted?

A: By shortly after 6 p.m. EST on Tuesday the first of nearly 5,000 stringers will have started to report to county election centers. When the first polls close in Indiana and Kentucky, they'll be ready to start phoning in the raw vote as it is reported by the counties. They'll place their calls to one of AP's four regional and 11 state vote collection centers, the largest of which is the Western Election Center at Eastern Washington University in Cheney, Wash., where the votes from 22 states will be reported by AP stringers. Stringers for another nine states will call their returns to a vote center at AP headquarters in New York. Other regional centers are in Brooklyn, New York, and Spokane, Wash.

A total of 450 vote entry clerks will punch in the numbers on a computer screen and feed them onto the state and national election tables that will be seen in the newsrooms of AP's members.

The clerks are encouraged to ask questions to ensure accuracy. They'll ask the stringers whether there are problems in their county, question votes and precincts if results look suspect, and make sure that those working around them are asking questions, too.

The vote count and entry operation will continue in full swing across the 50 states and the District of Columbia all night, tapering down about 4 a.m. Wednesday morning and then picking up again at 9 a.m. so AP can chase down the final results and go after returns in undecided races.

Each state is assigned at least one "chase" person whose job is to do nothing but pursue missing vote reports. They will scan for counties that haven't been heard from and call the stringers. If they can't find the stringers, they'll go directly to the county clerk or to AP members to get the numbers. Others scan state and county Web sites to make sure AP’s numbers are competitive with those from available sources.

Q. How does AP make sure the count is accurate?

A: As votes are entered into the AP system they must pass through computer programs that set off alerts in cases of discrepancies or apparent inconsistencies with previous voting history or other data. If a clerk enters numbers that show a significant disparity from expected patterns, for example, a popup box appears on his or her screen that summons a supervisor to intervene. In addition, experienced analysts examine post-entry alerts that call attention to developments like lead changes in races, inconsistent reporting like more votes for lieutenant governor than governor, and the like.

Q. What about technical problems?

A. What's called "failover testing" is a regular part of AP’s pre-election routine. If one or more of AP's state computers goes down, the system automatically fails over to a backup system. If one of AP’s technical centers, in Cranbury, N.J., or Kansas City, loses power, the system seamlessly swings over to the alternate site.

Q: Does AP do exit polling?

A: AP is a member of the National Election Pool, which includes the five U.S. television networks ABC, CBS, CNN, Fox and NBC. Edison Media Research/Mitofsky International has conducted exit polls for NEP since 2004. Even before the first polls have opened at 6 a.m., exit poll interviewers report for duty at randomly selected precincts. They report the results of their interviews to EMR/MI which, some time before the first of the polls close on election night, report the compiled information to NEP members. The on-site polling is supplemented by telephone surveys in selected states.

Q. How does AP call races?

A. The responsibility for calling races rests with the AP bureau chief for each state. They are armed with on-the-ground knowledge of their territory that no other national news organization can match. Plus they have information on demographics, absentee and other voting history and political issues that may affect the outcome of races they must call. On election night, they are assisted by experts in AP’s Washington, D.C., bureau who examine exit poll numbers and votes as they are counted. A "decision desk" in Washington headed by the Washington bureau chief has the final signoff on all top of the ticket calls.

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