Election 101 Answers Your Questions

What Can I Expect on Election Night?

Responses have been edited for length and clarity:

Expectations for Election Night

JAMES: This is Election 101. I'm Dr. Sarah James from political science.

DONAWAY: And I'm Dr. Rebecca Donaway from communication studies. 

JAMES: And today we're here to talk about what to expect on election night. 

DONAWAY: Or not to expect, on election night. 

JAMES: And there's a very short, simple answer which is...

DONAWAY: Nothing.

JAMES: You should expect nothing.

DONAWAY: No conclusions, no certainty. If we learned anything from 2020, it may take several days. Although the mail-in ballots won't be quite the same due to the disruptions of COVID in 2020, we should still expect that we likely will not have a clear winner on November 5th. 

JAMES: When do you think we should expect results by?

DONAWAY: I think within the week. 

JAMES. Within the week?

DONAWAY: I think within a week after the election, we'll have a clear understanding of how the votes were cast and who our next president will be. 

Final Thoughts

DONAWAY: Don't forget to vote. Turn in your absentee ballots. 

JAMES: Turn them in. Reach out if you have questions. 

DONAWAY: Tell a friend to turn their absentee ballots in. 

JAMES: Make a plan. If you don't have one, make sure everybody in your life has a plan to cast their ballots. 

DONAWAY: Go democracy.

How Do I Find Reliable Information About the Election?

Responses have been edited for length and clarity:

Information Diet

DONAWAY: Hi, this is Elections 101. My name is Rebecca Donaway and I'm a professor of communication studies. I think when it comes to getting reliable information, we ought to think about the information we consume much like a diet. So if we're familiar with the pyramid or the plate that's got the different sections, we need things like carbs, fat and protein to make up a healthy meal. Likewise, there are some media sources, some sources of information that are lighter, that are more entertaining, less nutrient dense. And those are things like late night talk shows, or satirical programming. Those things might taste good, and they might feel good for us to align with people that agree with our position, but they don't fill us with the kind of information that we need. This is like if you eat potato chips and brownies all day long. It will taste good for a little while and also your body will not run well. So if we want to have a lot of really good information to make choices about voting or all kinds of other matters of civic concern, we need a balanced diet of information.

Where to Find Reliable Information

DONAWAY: One stop you can always lean on here on campus are your Foley librarians. They are a wonderful source of information for you. Otherwise, you want to think about having some information that kind of looks like broccoli. It's not super exciting and also, you know it's really good for you. So it's things that are less emotionally engaging content and also give you the facts and information that you need.

Tackling Misinformation

DONAWAY: If you come across information that sounds just too good to be true, it's always good to go double check it, especially before you pass it along. It's really difficult to correct misinformation and actually some of our attempts at correcting can make those beliefs even more entrenched. And so if we can keep ourselves from passing along bad information in the first place, that's really the ultimate goal. So when you are deciding what kinds of election, political information to consume, make sure it's a balanced diet.

How Do Our Votes Get Counted?

Responses have been edited for length and clarity:

How Our Votes get Counted

JAMES: Hi everyone, this is Election 101. I'm Dr. Sarah James from the political science department, and today we are talking about how our votes get counted. What happens to them once we cast them? In part, this answer is different for every single state, but what I'm going to describe is the model that most states roughly follow.

The Process

JAMES: So once you cast your ballot, whether that's in person or you mail it in, the Secretary of State in each of the 50 states has a team of people and a set of systems and rules for how those votes get counted. So they will begin to be counted on election night. Different states have different rules about whether or not mail-in ballots get counted ahead of time or not. That will either already have finished by election night or will commence on election night. And once those votes get counted in each of the districts or precincts, then those vote tallies will get aggregated up to the state level. And then electors, which we'll talk about in a separate video, will get assigned to each candidate based on which presidential candidate received the most votes within the broader state.

Things to Keep in Mind

JAMES: Something else that I think is important to keep in mind is that not all precincts are created equal. They're supposed to have about the same number of people in them, but some precincts lean more Democratic and some lean more Republican. We'll see people on the news talking about which precincts tend to get counted first. And so it can be that more urban precincts get counted more quickly, which might mean that there is an advantage for Democrats early on, but then once more rural districts come in, it might lean more heavily towards Republicans. So you can't assume that every district or precinct is going to come in and offer the exact same proportional support of candidates.