With an emphasis on transparency and accuracy, AP tabulates the vote for some 7,000 races nationwide, calling races and delivering in-depth coverage.
Coverage of U.S. elections is one of the AP’s most crucial missions, carried out in a sprawling but hyper-meticulous operation that stretches company-wide and brings order and clarity to the nation’s patchwork voting system. It’s a public service that predates the Civil War, going back to the 1848 contest when the AP declared Zachary Taylor president. In 2020, in an election cycle upended by a steady stream of disinformation and a global pandemic, the AP built on 172 years of election experience and delivered stories, photos, videos and graphics in innovative ways that didn’t just tell the story of who won, but why as well.
In each state and in Washington, D.C., race callers and news staffers worked in tandem to determine the winners of not only the presidential contest, but governorships, Congressional seats, ballot initiatives and more. In Pennsylvania, the state that tipped the contest in Joe Biden’s favor, the call was made Saturday after days of painstaking work to determine the scope of outstanding votes.
The complexity of the vote, happening amid a pandemic and white-hot partisan feuding, was brought together by senior writers and editors in compelling main stories and deeply knowledgeable analyses.
Once vote counts started coming in, our customers quickly gravitated to a new feature called Explainer that offered contextual looks at the reasons behind race calls for each state. Amid unfounded allegations of fraud, these brought greater transparency to AP’s race-calling decisions and the electoral process when it has never mattered more.
Video customers quickly came to rely on AP’s stable of live video cameras positioned in key places around the country, resulting in a whopping six days of uninterrupted live footage.
Web users were drawn to an ambitious interactive that distilled AP’s massive vote count data into an easily readable, and highly clickable, format.
A poll worker talks to a voter before they vote by paper ballot in Atlanta on Election Day, Nov. 3, 2020.
AP Photo / Brynn Anderson
Voters line up before polls open on Election Day at a precinct in Warren, Mich., Nov. 3, 2020.
AP Photo / David Goldman
Poll workers help a senior citizen sign in to vote in New York, Nov. 3, 2020.
AP Photo / Mary Altaffer
People line up to vote at the Milwaukee County Sports Complex in Franklin, Wis., Nov. 3, 2020.
AP Photo / Morry Gash
Jeniya Garrett, right, watches her aunt Catherina Neal vote at the Dr. Martin Luther King Community Center in the Bronzeville neighborhood of Chicago, Nov. 3, 2020.
AP Photo / Charles Rex Arbogast
Denise Pumphrey shouts “first-time voter” at the Kentucky Center for African American Heritage in Louisville, Ky., Nov. 3, 2020.
AP Photo / Darron Cummings
A man stops to watch election returns on electronic billboards in Times Square in New York, Nov. 3, 2020.
AP Photo / Seth Wenig
President Donald Trump speaks at the Trump campaign headquarters in Arlington, Va., on Election Day, Nov. 3, 2020.
AP Photo / Alex Brandon
Lenore Kurek, center, watches with fellow supporters of President Donald Trump as election results are broadcast at a watch party in Shelby Township, Mich., Nov. 3, 2020.
AP Photo / David Goldman
A supporter of President Donald Trump rests on a table while waiting for election results at an election night party in Las Vegas, Nov. 3, 2020.
AP Photo / John Locher
Philadelphia election workers process general election mail-in and absentee ballots at the Pennsylvania Convention Center, Nov. 3, 2020.
AP Photo / Matt Slocum
Election staffers pack ballots after the polls closed at the Moose Lodge in Kenosha, Wis., Nov. 3, 2020.
AP Photo / Wong Maye-E
Non-partisan poll election challenger Richard Saad observes election inspectors as they begin to count ballots on Election Day at City Hall in Warren, Mich., in Macomb County, Nov. 3, 2020.
AP Photo / David Goldman
A Republican election challenger, right, watches election inspectors as they examine ballots in the early morning hours of Nov. 4, 2020, at the central counting board in Detroit.
AP Photo / David Goldman
People yell behind windows of the central counting board in Detroit as police stopped others from entering due to overcrowding, Nov. 4, 2020.
AP Photo / Carlos Osorio
An election worker examines ballots as vote counting for the general election continues at State Farm Arena in Atlanta, Nov. 5, 2020.
AP Photo / Brynn Anderson
The hands of Angelo Austin, left, a Joe Biden supporter, and Donald Trump supporter C.L. Bryant, right, gesture as the men argue during a demonstration against the election results outside the central counting board at the TCF Center in Detroit, Mich., Nov. 5, 2020.
AP Photo / David Goldman
Zhanon Morales, 30, of Philadelphia, raises her fist during a rally outside the Pennsylvania Convention Center, Nov. 5, 2020, as demonstrators call for all votes to be counted in Pennsylvania.
AP Photo / Rebecca Blackwell
President Donald Trump walks away after speaking in the White House briefing room, Nov. 5, 2020.
AP Photo / Evan Vucci
People calling for all votes be counted demonstrate outside the Pennsylvania Convention Center where general election votes were being processed in Philadelphia, Nov. 5, 2020.
AP Photo / Matt Slocum
Meredith Walsh, center, celebrates the victory of President-elect Joe Biden and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris in Oakland, Calif., after the race was called, Nov. 7, 2020.
AP Photo / Noah Berger
A protester supporting President Donald Trump holds a baseball bat in Salem, Ore., after the presidential race was called for Democrat Joe Biden, Nov. 7, 2020.
AP Photo / Marcio Jose Sanchez
A supporter of President Donald Trump carries a Trump flag before a news conference by the Trump campaign in front of the Clark County Election Department in Las Vegas, Nov. 5, 2020.
AP Photo / John Locher
Media crews set up outside the White House while waiting for the presidential race to be called, Nov. 6, 2020.
AP Photo / Evan Vucci
Vice President-elect Kamala Harris joins hands with President-elect Joe Biden as they celebrate their election victory, Nov. 7, 2020, in Wilmington, Del.
AP Photo / Andrew Harnik)
People celebrate in Philadelphia, after Democrat Joe Biden defeated President Donald Trump to become 46th president of the United States.
AP Photo / Rebecca Blackwell
Fletcher Peters of New York, a journalism student at New York University, reacts as she watches President-elect Joe Biden on a monitor in Times Square in New York as he addressed the nation, Nov. 7, 2020.
AP Photo / Craig Ruttle
President Donald Trump smiles at supporters after a campaign rally at Gerald R. Ford International Airport in Grand Rapids, Mich., early on Elelction Day, Nov. 3, 2020.
AP Photo / Evan Vucci
President-elect Joe Biden gestures to supporters during a victory celebration in Wilmington, Del., Nov. 7, 2020.
AP Photo / Andrew Harnik)
Meanwhile, AP’s photojournalists did what they do best, rapidly delivering compelling images from voting centers, protests and the jubilant image of Biden and his running mate Kamala Harris that graced the cover of Time magazine.
AP News saw 12 million pageviews on Election Day, and well over 10 million on Saturday, the day AP called the election. (A typical day sees 2 million to 4 million.) Ten political stories topped 1 million pageviews each, led by the story announcing Biden’s victory, which had nearly 2.6 million.
With the Florida results in hand, Deputy Managing Editor David Scott, left, calls that race in favor of President Donald Trump on election night at the Washington bureau of the AP, early Nov. 4, 2020. At right, sports writer and editor Ben Nuckols enters race calls into AP’s system.
AP Photo / Pablo Martinez Monsivais
These are just some of the highlights of AP’s election coverage. Success on a story this massive can happen only with months, even years, of diligent planning, strong execution on little-to-no sleep and the dedication of hundreds of AP journalists — too many to call out by name.
None of this would have been possible without countless colleagues outside the News department — conspicuously the Elections vote tabulation team, as well as staffers in technology, products and revenue to name just a few — who work year-round enabling AP to fulfill this essential role.
For coverage that distinguished the AP with its clarity, transparency, breadth and accuracy in a momentous election year, the collective work of AP’s staff earns this week’s Best of the Week honors.
