Poll: 50% of young people prefer Biden and 26% Trump 2:49
(CNN) -
If you've ever watched CNN on election night, you will know that Wolf Blitzer announces the network's election screening, in which he says that this or that candidate will win a particular election.
The process that leads Blitzer to say those words is careful and complicated.
These are real-time results and information from exit polls.
CNN, NBC, ABC and CBS work with polling firm Edison Research in what is known as the National Election Pool to get results and data from exit polls.
Fox News and the Associated Press have a separate agreement.
CNN's Brian Stelter recently interviewed Washington bureau chief Sam Feist on "Reliable Sources" about how CNN projects the election and how different the process will be this year.
ANALYSIS |
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You can read a transcript of that conversation below, edited slightly for length.
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Separately, I also spoke with Jennifer Agiesta, CNN's director of Election Polls and Analysis, who leads the network's decision table.
Later you will find their points of view.
This year is different
BRIAN STELTER: This is ... Sam, this is which one, your eighth presidential election on CNN, right?
SAM FEIST, CHIEF OFFICE OF CNN WASHINGTON: Right. 1992 was the first.
STELTER:
There are many things that have not changed in terms of the decision table process.
What is the most important X-factor this year that makes you and your colleagues think that we should explain this more about how elections work?
FEIST:
This will be an election like no other.
You've heard it over and over again.
But I'm not sure the vote tally or report is going to be very different.
In fact, I think there are many reasons to believe that everything will be in order.
Obviously this year, due to mail-in ballots, as a result of the pandemic, it could take a bit longer, right?
Mail ballots take longer to count.
They have to open up.
They have to be processed.
Some states don't begin processing mail-in ballots until Election Day, so it could take a little longer.
But I really think that if we don't have a winner on election night, there is a very good chance that we will know the answer on Wednesday or Thursday because the vast majority of the votes will have already been counted by then.
How do we obtain electoral results?
STELTER: Let's get into the weeds about counting. So the local districts in the states count, they count the votes, and then what happens to the media, thousands of decentralized people across the country who get that data and pass it on to you and your colleagues at the table? of decisions?
FEIST:
That is correct.
Local officials across the country at the county, city, municipality, or sometimes state level, count and publicly report votes.
And then across the country, the National Election Pool and Associated Press, as the case may be, send reporters to find out and report on the votes.
The votes go back to a central tabulation hub for us, and then of course we report them to the viewers.
And that happens all night long, and then it will continue to happen and it always does after election night because the votes keep coming in.
Votes by mail and absentee votes continue to be received.
And that will happen during the following days.
And then when all the votes are counted, we report all the results, and it's as simple as that.
The Voting Rights Act, final to defend the right to vote of minorities in the United States.
Early voting for 3:12 elections begins in Georgia
STELTER: There are some misconceptions about how this works. For example, exit polls, there are tens of thousands of interviews with voters after they vote to get an idea of why they voted the way they did. But, you know, networks don't just use exit polls to make screenings and close contests. So I think we should, we should debunk that myth right now.
Also here on screen, the networks do not compete to be the first to announce screenings. Now, I feel like in the year 2000, there was a concern that would happen. And 2020?
FEIST:
So, you were right that in the year 2000, I think there may have been some competition between the networks to be the first to report.
But I haven't seen that since I've been doing this.
I've been doing this, working with the decision team since 2004, and there is no competition to be first.
There is a race to be right, which is not a race at all.
It is far more important to be right than to be the first to report.
And I can really assure you that the decision teams in the networks are not competing with each other.
To a large extent, they are in sync with each other.
One chain may be slightly ahead in one state, another chain may be slightly ahead in another state, but it's actually votes that drive decisions.
When there are enough votes in a particular state to give the decision team confidence that that person is going to win, then they can announce a screening.
So, you won't see an information race this year, nor should you, and that's a good thing for the public.
STELTER: I think it's interesting that there are two different systems, two different groups that do all of this. And that is new in recent years. You have on the one hand the National Elections Group, including CNN, and then this type of competitor in the market, AP Votecast. However, maybe it is good that this year two different groups collect the results, because it is a kind of check and balance and could give people more confidence in the results.
FEIST:
Yes. I really wouldn't call it a competitor.
I would suggest that the two organizations are working in parallel there: the National Elections Group and the Associated Press.
Each will independently get the vote count for the entire country.
And I think that in some way they control each other because when the public sees that two independent media consortia, two independent media outlets report the votes and are very similar, I think that builds trust and that is something that we need in this election. .
So, I don't really see them as competitors.
I see them working in parallel and that's good.
Be patient, United States.
This could take a while
STELTER: Generally, 11 pm (Miami time) is the earliest time there will be talk of screenings of an election because the western states have closed their polls. Is there any possibility of a screening at 11 pm, November 3?
FEIST:
Yes, of course there is the possibility of a projection.
It is possible and we tend to do screenings early on Election Night if the race is not closed, particularly in those battlefield states.
But it's very possible that there won't be a screening on election night.
You know, people forget that in two of the last five elections we have gone to sleep without knowing who the president-elect was.
Everyone remembers the year 2000, where Florida was the breakthrough state, the voting was too close to talk about an outcome on Election Night, and we didn't know it, and it took another 31 days.
But the next election was in 2004, and in that case, Ohio was the state that was going to be decisive and we didn't have enough votes to project a winner on election night, so we waited.
And it was at noon the next day that in Ohio there were enough clear results that George W. Bush won Ohio and was re-elected.
So it is not unusual for elections to not be decided on Election Day, especially this year because vote-by-mail ballots take longer to count.
You have to open them, you have to process them, so we may not know until Wednesday or Thursday or even later.
But I think the vast majority of votes in the country will be counted by the end of election week, so I think we will probably meet a winner.
It may not be election night.
And it's OK.
That does not mean that something is wrong.
The public, the media, the candidates just need to be a little patient.
ANALYSIS: Biden's lead over Trump remains, while by now Clinton's is collapsing
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5:03
What happens if a candidate declares victory prematurely?
STELTER: We need to tell people to be patient. A slow count is a safe count. But you know, we don't know what is going to happen in terms of Florida or other key states, what is going to happen with participation in those votes. What if, let's say it's midnight or 1 a.m., and Donald Trump comes out and says I'm the winner of the election, and our data doesn't support that at all? What will CNN do?
FEIST:
If we haven't projected enough states for a candidate to reach 270 electoral votes, and a candidate comes out and declares victory, we will make it clear that the facts do not support that claim of victory.
And we will do it in several ways.
If you've watched CNN's Election Night, John King spends a large portion of Election Night explaining why we haven't projected a winner in a particular state.
And it goes county by county, reveals how many votes remain to be entered, how many votes have been counted, which counties have not reported many votes.
This year, of course, we will add absentee votes all night into our conversation.
And if we are not ready to project the state, we are not ready to project the state, that does not mean that something is wrong.
And we will make it clear to our viewers and readers, that there is simply not enough information to make a screening, and that the candidate - if a candidate comes out and declares a winner, declares victory ahead of time - is doing so before they have been. counted the votes, that's based on facts.
Everyone is seeing the same results, including Fox News
STELTER: Yes, the candidates will know nothing but chains. They won't have any magic data that the news networks don't have access to.
FEIST: That is correct.
STELTER: Sam, what about Fox? And Fox News? Is Fox's decision-making table trustworthy given that this network includes propagandists like Sean Hannity, who could try to side with Trump in a kind of electoral tug of war?
FEIST: All the chains have excellent decision teams.
These are made up of political scientists and data scientists.
Jenn Agiesta, who leads CNN's decision team, is our Polls director.
She has been working with our decision team for many years.
And that is true of all chains.
The public has every reason to trust the networks' decision teams.
And my advice to everyone, all politicians, supporters, commentators, analysts, wait for the projections from the networks and the Associated Press, and do not get ahead of them.
They are the experts the country has come to depend on over the years.
And any analyst who thinks he knows more than these decision tables that have been doing this for 30 years is wrong.
You just don't know.
And I would have a lot of confidence in the decision tables.
And be patient, they will take their time and they will not get ahead of themselves.
So I would give that advice to everyone on election night.
No one knows what will happen until there are definitive results
STELTER: The bottom line here is that it's all about patience and not assuming we know what's going to happen. There are many people who are assuming the worst, and that is not a good idea. But we must also be prepared for many different possibilities. Is that fair?
FEIST:
That is correct.
That is absolutely correct.
And we just have to give the local electoral authorities the time to count the votes.
In many states, they may have time to do it on Election Night.
In other states, due to state election laws where absentee ballots cannot start counting until Election Day, just give them time.
It can take one or more days.
Give them time.
They will count the votes and then we will all know.
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Jennifer Agiesta talks about the specific things the decision table considers
WHAT MATTERS: What are the specific metrics you are looking for to project a result? Is there a magic threshold by which you can say that there is no way a particular candidate can overcome this?
AGIESTA
: There is no magic involved in projecting victories.
Unfortunately, everything is mathematical.
There are a number of things we look for in every state to be confident in a projection.
The most important thing is what has been counted: where are the votes geographically coming from within the state, what types of votes are included in the tally, and how much of the total votes does the tally represent at this time?
If there is a clear advantage for a candidate in the current tally, but none of the votes from the strongest part of the state for the final candidate has yet to be obtained, that margin will likely not hold.
If, on the other hand, there is a good geographical representation in the vote, it is a point in favor of a projection.
If all that has been counted are absentee and early votes, or all votes on Election Day, there will not be a clear picture of what all the votes will look like when both types of vote are included.
Some of both are necessary for closer race screenings.
And the number of votes left to count is critical and may be more difficult information to track in 2020. That's more difficult for two reasons.
First, the increase in vote-by-mail and the number of ballots that may have been mailed in time for Election Day, but are received by election officials afterward.
There is no way of knowing exactly how many of them there will be on election night.
And second, there is the reduced value of knowing the number of reporting districts.
Fewer people are voting on Election Day in most places, and some states are consolidating constituencies, so comparisons of the number of people voting in a particular constituency now versus in the past are less valuable and may be more difficult to get a good reading of the day's participation before a county or city is fully reported.
It is also valuable to compare what we know about voting now with what happened in a state or county in the past in terms of turnout and who they are voting for.
Whether those patterns remain the same or are changing this year will help determine when we can do a projection.
What states are key for a presidential projection?
WHAT MATTERS: Is there a specific state that you are considering this year as a benchmark for the presidential race?
Agiesta:
It's difficult to
narrow
it down to a single state, but generally there are two types of states that election analysts are looking for this year, and one state within each type that is more critical in determining the president.
One group is the fast-growing, traditionally Republican, Sun Belt states where Democrats have been gaining ground as the composition of the population has changed: Arizona, North Carolina and Florida are emblematic of those trends, and within Of those three, Florida is the most critical state for the electoral fortunes of any of the presidential candidates.
The other group is the northern states that have been Democrats in the recent presidential election, but voted overwhelmingly for Trump in 2016. These states, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, have sizable populations of white voters without college degrees and economies that have had that change as the economy in America has changed.
In that group, Pennsylvania is the source of power in electoral votes.
What about the Senate?
WHAT MATTERS: It's not just the presidential race at stake. Control of the Senate is also at stake. Will the races be screened to the Senate? Is the process different?
Agiesta:
Yes, we will screen all those Senate races, as well as the governor's races in the 11 states where they will take place.
The projections for the other electoral disputes follow the same procedures as the presidential races.
We are looking at how much we know about all the different types of votes out there, where those votes come from, how they compare to what we know about votes there in the past, and what we know about what remains to be counted.
We need the same kind of confidence in that information about Senate and Governor races as we do in presidential elections.
2020 United States Elections CNN Polls