Determining Election Winners
For insight into the election laws of your current state, make sure to review rules on determining Election winners on Ballotpedia. In particular, you will want to determine how many seats are up for election in each district, if a runoff is called for Too Close to Call, or if there are any other nuances in that state's election laws. Another common issue to be aware of is if a candidate needs 50%+ to advance to the general election, or if the candidate with the most votes, regardless of percentage, advances. You should also know what type of primary each state has, (open, closed, semi-closed ect), or, in case of states like CA, WA, and LA, the top 2 candidates regardless of party advance to the general (in LA’s case, a runoff election).
Before you declare a winner, you check who won as certified by a media source like the New York Times. The winner will be marked by a checkmark next to their name. Races without a candidate with a checkmark is usually considered as Too Close to Call. Barring extenuating circumstances, if a candidate has a checkmark next to their name, mark them as the winner of the election. Remember to note how many seats there are per district.
This will let you know how many winners you need to declare per district. For example, there might be 8 people running for a district that has 5 seats. In this case, you would mark the top 5 vote-getters as won. When dealing with multimember districts, make sure to check with the results on the Secretary of State or State Board of Elections website to double check that you have the correct winners. Pay attention to the percentage of precincts reporting (not relevant if doing an update with official/certified results).
Anything less than 100% means you will have to make a judgment call. If you are uncomfortable making that call, defer to the Elections Director. If there is an obvious winner with less than 100% of precincts reporting, you can mark that person as having won. If there is a low percentage of precincts reporting, or it is not clear who the ultimate winner will be, you will be marking the candidates that have the potential to win as Too Close To Call until we get updated results. Write that these candidates are Too Close To Call on the Election results, mark those candidates as such in admin (under the appropriate election stage, and change the status from "Running" to "Too Close to Call").
We will generally consider a race Too Close to Call if the candidates are within 3 points or less than 100 votes. If you are unsure, consult the Elections Director. All Too Close to Call candidates follow the above procedure.
In this case, a runoff may be necessary, depending on the state. Mark the two candidates in the runoff as Too Close To Call, add the runoff stage to the election on Admin, add the election stage to the candidates and mark the candidates as running in the runoff. It is important to confirm all of this information with the election authority, as runoff rules vary from state to state. Be sure that you make this information live on the website as soon as it is confirmed, otherwise it won’t show up on the site.
Also, be sure to release the NPAT status of a runoff election if we are testing that election with the PCT. When adding Runoff Election stages, make sure to click on the NPATs Mailed button for that stage If you are adding candidates who are running in a primary election runoff, make sure that the candidates are not listed as running in the general election. If you are adding candidates who are running in a general election runoff, make sure that the office status of the candidates are not Elected, unless they are an incumbent.
