The election results summarize the voting outcomes of an election. Election results are unofficial until certified by local and state election officials, which can take days or weeks after the polls close.
News outlets typically report initial analysis of the results as soon as they’re available, but don’t declare winners until all votes have been counted and verified. During this time, reporters often compare their predictions to the actual results in order to assess how accurate they were. As a result, the unofficial results reported by news outlets may differ slightly from one outlet to the next because they allocate resources differently and receive updates from different places at different times.
The results of a presidential election are determined by the winner of each state’s electoral votes plus the number of congressional districts won. In most states, the winner of the statewide popular vote (‘one person, one vote’) will win all of that state’s electoral votes, but a few states — most notably Nebraska and Maine — allocate some of their electoral votes using district-based methods. Historically, these steps have all worked together to ensure that the winner of the popular vote is also the winner of the electoral college. In recent years, however, the certification process has come under intense pressure from people who want to prevent the election results from being properly verified. Attempts to stop the certification of election results are not only illegal, but they can also delay the ability to resolve any disputes through legal channels.