US elections: MAPS shows real-time counting

Americans go to the polls this Tuesday (3) for the midterm elections. g1 has prepared a special page so that readers can follow the coverage of the dispute and the counting of votes in real time.

Unlike Brazil, the United States Congress is partially renewed every two years. When they occur in the middle of the presidential term, these elections are called midterms.

US deputies serve two-year terms, while senators serve six-year terms.

As a result, every two years, the country renews the entire Chamber of Representatives and around a third of the Senate.

Therefore, in November, all 435 seats in the Chamber and 35 of the 100 in the Senate will be up for grabs.

On g1, a special page will have maps that will show how the count is going across the country for the Chamber, Senate and state government. It will also be possible to detail how the dispute is going in each state.

To find out, for example, who the candidates running in the elections in Texas are, just click on the state. The tool will show the performance of each competitor and the progress of the vote count by county.

The tool will also show how many seats each party still needs to win to reach a majority in the Chamber or Senate. As the results are released, a bar will show how each party's score is.

A party must elect more than 50 senators to have a majority in the Senate.

The party that elects 218 deputies or more will have control of the Chamber.

The United States does not have a body that centralizes the calculation, like the Superior Electoral Court (TSE) in Brazil. Each state has autonomy to organize elections, and voting and vote counting procedures may vary across the country.

In some states and counties, voting is done using paper ballots, while others use electronic voting machines. It is also possible to vote by mail.

Given this complexity, counting votes in the United States can take days, as each state does its own counting. In other words, the public may have to wait until after November 3 to find out which party will have a majority in the House and Senate.

In this scenario, the role of the press is fundamental. The projection of winners before the official count is made by press outlets — g1 and Globo, like most international networks, adopt data from the Associated Press (AP).

For 180 years, AP has been covering and verifying the results of American elections. The agency has around 4,000 reporters spread across electoral districts and county election offices across the country to check data.

The information is collected in a standardized way and analyzed based on a series of factors, which allows the agency to announce winners with confidence.

The AP does not directly manually count the votes cast at the polls. This work is performed by local election officials responsible for administering elections in each American state.

Additionally, the Associated Press can declare a winner in a given state before 100% of the votes have even been counted.

To do this, an analysis team evaluates the data to determine whether the candidate in front already has an advantage that cannot be reversed. Among the factors considered are:

progress of the investigation;

combination of voting history;

demographic data;

AP polling data.