After the media announces the results, the state votes may still be disputed. The real “official announcement” will have to wait until January 6 next year before it is officially announced by the Congress.
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Beijing News reporter Xie Lian Trainee reporter Luan Ruoxi Editor Bai Shuang Proofreader Li Ming
On November 7, local time, the Associated Press, Fox News, The New York Times, CNN, NBC and other US media announced that the Democratic presidential candidate Biden has won more than 270 electoral votes and won the 2020 presidential election. . After that, the media referred to Biden as the “President-elect” (President-elect), and Biden also changed his Twitter certification to “President-elect.”
In addition, multinational leaders around the world issued a statement congratulating Biden and his vice president partner Harris on winning the election. Biden then delivered a national speech in Delaware, saying that the American people gave him a “complete and convincing victory.”
▲Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden and his wife hug on the speech stage in Wilmington, Delaware. Associated Press screenshot
However, Trump, the current president and Republican presidential candidate, issued a statement that refused to recognize this result, saying that “the president is determined by legitimate votes, not the news media.”
In fact, as of November 8, Beijing time, many states in the United States are still counting votes, and the counting rate of some key swing states is only about 90%. Why can media organizations predict the results of the general election in advance? How does the media agency make a decision? Is their announcement considered an “official announcement”?
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How does the media determine the outcome?
In fact, the U.S. elections are counted by the states themselves, and there is no unified organization to summarize the election results. It is precisely because the public pays close attention to the general election information that most media organizations will collect state vote count data in real time, follow up the live vote count situation on their respective websites, and make decisions about state ownership based on the data prediction results.
On November 7, local time, when the mainstream media judged that Biden was elected president, the major media judged that Biden had received very different electoral votes. Fox News said that Biden received 290 electoral votes; The New York Times and The Washington Post said that Biden received 279 votes. Why are there discrepancies in the data of various media? How do the various media determine whether the states are “blue” or “red”?
▲The voting result determined by Fox News. Screenshot of Fox website
▲The ballot result judged by The New York Times. Screenshot of the New York Times website
In fact, in each year’s general election, the statistical votes given by major media organizations vary. This is because the media in the United States have different databases. The media first collect real-time polls, total votes, post-voting polls and other data from polling stations in various states, and then use different models to predict uncalculated votes. It is inferred from the prediction whether the behind candidates can win the majority with the uncounted votes. Once it is judged that the lagging candidate is unable to recover, even if the state’s vote count has not ended, the media will immediately predict the state’s ownership.
In the 2020 presidential election, CNN, NBC, ABC, and CBS adopted the National Election Reporting Corps (multiple American media). The formed coalition provides data from post-voting polls for the U.S. election, while Fox News uses data from the Associated Press. The Associated Press previously stated that in order to ensure the accuracy of the published data, in the 2020 presidential election, it launched an information collection network composed of more than 4,000 local special reporters from 50 states to collect data from county to county. .
Various media organizations said they made their judgments based on rigorous data. John Lapinski, director of the NBC News election team, said, “NBC will only declare a candidate to win if it is at least 99.5% convinced. If the data is too close, we will not easily draw conclusions.” Fox News Said that in order to obtain all the data covering voters who voted in advance, voters who voted on election day, and voters who mailed ballots, they conducted telephone and online voting a few days before the election. Politico said that it will only announce the winner if the Associated Press or the three major television stations (ABC, CBS, NBC) have announced the winner.
Among many media organizations, the Associated Press’s statistical results are considered more authoritative and credible. The Associated Press has a history of counting votes for more than 170 years. In the 2016 presidential election, the Associated Press published an accuracy rate of 99.8% for all election results, and an accuracy rate of 100% for the president and Congress. That year was also the first announcement by the Associated Press that Trump was elected the 45th President of the United States.
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Is there any case of wrong judgment in the media?
In order to gain the upper hand, most media organizations will determine the results in advance before all the results of the counting are calculated. Even though various media emphasized that they were cautious in making judgments, they still cannot avoid “wrong judgments”.
According to a report by the Telusa News in Utah, the Republican presidential candidate Thomas Dewey faced the then U.S. president and Democratic presidential candidate Truman in the 1948 presidential election. At that time, due to the strike of printing workers, the deadline for newspaper printing had to be advanced. The editor-in-chief of “Chicago Tribune” Maloney announced in the newspaper that Dewey had won. In the end, Truman succeeded in a “turnover” between California and Illinois with a gap of less than 1%, achieving re-election.
▲In 1948, Truman took the “Chicago Tribune” newspaper that misjudged Dewey’s victory. Picture from the Associated Press
The same was true in the 1960 election, when Democratic presidential candidate John F. Kennedy competed with Republican presidential candidate Richard Nixon. On the night of election day, CBS and ABC respectively announced Nixon’s victory. In the end, Kennedy defeated Nixon, who won 219 electoral votes with 303 electoral votes, and was elected president.
The 2000 presidential election was even more tortuous. On election day, NBC, CBS, ABC and CNN all predicted that Democratic presidential candidate Al Gore would win Florida. Gore even called the Republican candidate George W. Bush, asking him to admit defeat. However, shortly after the TV station made its prediction, the TV stations withdrew their prediction results because the vote gap was too close, and in the early morning of the next day, they sentenced Florida to Bush Jr. What ensued was a protracted legal battle surrounding Florida’s vote counting. In the end, the Supreme Court decided that Bush Jr. was elected president.
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Is the media announcement considered an “official announcement”?
The results announced by the media organizations are based on the analysis of state data. Although from historical data, the results determined by the U.S. media are basically in line with the final results, but there are certain differences from the real “official announcements.”
According to the New York Times, each presidential election consists of two stages: the first is the state vote counting stage, and the second is the electoral college vote counting stage conducted by Congress in January of the following year. The final official election result needs to wait until the states have determined the result of the state’s vote count, and then count the electoral college votes.
According to Reuters, according to federal law, states must resolve ballot disputes and confirm state winners before December 8. According to the electoral college voting system, if this date is exceeded, Congress will no longer accept the state’s voting results.
Subsequently, members of the Electoral College will meet on the first Monday after the second Wednesday in December, and this year it will be on December 14. The electoral college members voted for the presidential candidate and voted for the vice presidential candidate, winning a majority of 538 electoral votes, that is, 270 or more presidential candidates were elected president. States usually require electors to swear an oath to guarantee that they will vote for candidates from his party.
On January 6, 2021, the Congress will meet at 1 p.m. local time to formally count the electoral votes and announce the winner. If there is a dispute about the electoral college votes in a certain state, it needs to be submitted in writing by the congressman, and the House of Representatives and the Senate will decide on the dispute respectively. Finally, the Vice President, accompanied by the Speaker of the House of Representatives, will formally announce who will be the next President. If no candidate obtains more than 270 electoral votes, it will be decided by the House of Representatives.
In other words, after the media announces the results, the state votes may still be controversial. The real “official announcement” result will have to wait until January 6 next year before the Congress officially announces it. On January 20, the winning presidential candidate and his running partner will be sworn in as President and Vice President at the US Capitol.
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After Biden announced his victory
The biggest problem facing Trump is to leave the White House willingly
The vote counting for the US general election has not yet ended, but the result of the general election is clear. While Biden announced his victory, Trump refused to declare defeat and did not congratulate Biden on his election.
What needs to be seen is that behind Biden’s victory is the rapidly changing American sentiment, and even the constantly tearing United States. From Biden’s announcement of victory to the final vote of the Electoral College, Trump’s announcement of defeat to leaving the White House, the United States has entered a very sensitive power transition stage.
In theory, there are still two presidents, one elected president, and another president who is in office and does not admit defeat. Biden vowed to be the president of all Americans, but this election is like an X-ray examination of American people’s sentiments. We can see very clear red-blue opposition and the solidification and drift of election geographic space.
Biden’s victory in the election is difficult and long
Biden’s victory did not come easily. This is something the Democratic Party, mainstream American polling agencies and media did not expect.
The polls before the election showed that Biden was fully ahead. Some people expected to see the “blue frenzy” on the election night after the election, but this did not actually happen. The red and blue camps present a very clear opposition. The Democratic Party has a general confrontation between the Chu River and the Han boundary between the blue positions on the east and west coasts and the central red state.
It is the battlefield states in the Lake District that ultimately determine whether Biden can be elected, such as Wisconsin and Michigan. Prior to this, Trump not only won Ohio, Iowa, and Florida, but the gap between Arizona and Biden has been narrowing. Central America has become the basic Republican party.
Biden trot all the way to the podium: The people gave me a convincing victory
Under such circumstances, even hardcore Democrats will doubt whether the Democratic Party understands the American election or the sentiments of the people. The electoral geography is complex and changeable. How easy is it for Biden to become the president of all Americans?
Because the vote gap is less than one percentage point, Trump’s team of lawyers have requested recounts in many states. In other words, the US election is not only difficult to measure, but also requires multiple measurements. A large part of this is because Trump is an anomaly in American electoral politics. Some polling experts say that there are not enough data on Trump, so it is difficult to accurately predict the outcome of the election.
Voter emotions have profoundly affected this U.S. election
In this general election, we have seen that the theoretical loopholes in the American electoral system have become a reality test. The United States is not directly elected president, but an electoral system. The election battle between Trump and Biden has begun before the vote. Both parties have disputes over voting rules, especially the legality of mail voting and post-election vote counting rules.
Large-scale voting, especially mailed ballots, is also a great pressure on the American election machinery. Behind this is not the maturity of American politics. On the contrary, it is the mood of the voters that makes the turnout rate hit a record high.
In this general election, both sides used their emotions to win more votes for themselves. Trump is a master of emotion control and mobilized Americans’ sense of fear, while the Biden team used the anxiety of the middle class and above. .
During the counting of votes, the competition between the two parties did not stop. The Trump campaign asked to stop counting votes after Election Night, and Biden launched a “count every vote” campaign.
So the focus of this election is on the vote of voters, especially the vote of swing states. But this is actually different from the American electoral system.
The reason why the American constitutionalists designed the electoral system was to prevent the tyranny of the majority or the politics of passion, but this time we saw the influence of passion on American politics, and even formed two diametrically opposed “political worlds” based on emotions.
Biden gave a victory speech and his Twitter certification was renamed “President-elect”, but the election is not over yet. Now it’s just that the vote counting of each state has entered the final stage, and the next step is the voting by the Electoral College.
The problem and challenge Biden faces is that Trump has not announced his defeat, and the game and competition after the election continue. Under normal election conditions, the general election is over after the count of votes in each state. The remaining links are basically procedural and ceremonial.
But this year’s general election is very different. Both procedures and ceremonies have become the focus of fierce competition. How to achieve a smooth transfer of power allows Trump to leave the White House peacefully despite his unwillingness. It is after Biden’s election. The first challenge.
Biden has the desire to set things right and bring American politics back on track, but the America he faces is already very different from the America he is familiar with and expects. Both Trump’s election in 2016 and Biden’s difficult victory show that American people’s sentiments have changed drastically. What Biden urgently needs to do is to recuperate and bridge the divisions of people’s sentiments.
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