Amid high stakes and intense emotions, it can be difficult to find balance. Whether you’re a voter, journalist or citizen, the key is to check your sources and remain calm. Research shows that trust in credible information can help buffer feelings of anxiety or uncertainty.
Depending on your state’s rules, local election officials begin counting ballots as soon as polls close, but they are not required to report results until all votes have been counted. Then, after all valid ballots are included, the election results will be certified by the state. This process can take days (and sometimes weeks) to ensure that all eligible votes are counted accurately.
The news media tracks vote counts in real time at local locations and from sources like government websites. Different news outlets may have slightly different numbers at any given time because they allocate their resources differently and can receive updates from some places faster than others.
In a close race, a news outlet may decide to “call” the predicted winner of a race once their analysis makes them sufficiently confident about their prediction. However, a call is just an unofficial prediction and no race is officially called until all votes have been counted and the results have been checked by elections officials.
Voting takes place in all fifty states and the District of Columbia. Each state has its own system for awarding electoral votes. To become president, a candidate must win a majority of the electoral college votes. Click on an election year in the interactive below to see how many electoral votes each state received and which candidates won them.