Americans will cast roughly 160 million ballots by the time Election Day comes to a close — in several different ways, including many submitted a few weeks before polls even open.They will choose a president, members of Congress and thousands of state lawmakers, city council members, attorneys general, secretaries of state — and in Texas, a railroad commissioner who has nothing to do with the trains.
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This year’s election also comes at a moment in the nation’s history when the very basics of how America votes are being challenged as never before by disinformation and distrust.It can be tough to make sense of it all. To help better understand the way America picks its president and its leaders — all the way down the ballot — we’re publishing a series aimed at assisting readers in making sense of the American democracy.
Read on for more about Election Day 2024:
U.S. elections
What are the top races?
Here are the top 25 must-know people, places, races, dates and more. Consider it a guidebook, of sorts, to American democracy as it nears its 250th birthday.
Elections 2024: Top 25 must-know people, races, dates and more
How reliable are U.S. elections?
Glitches have occurred throughout the history of U.S. elections. Yet election workers across America have consistently pulled off presidential elections and accurately tallied the results — and there’s no reason to believe this year will be any different.
Not everything will run perfectly on Election Day. Still, US elections are remarkably reliable
How can I keep track of results?
Election night is a bit like a jigsaw puzzle, except that only one piece appears at a time, and you don’t get to look at the picture on the box. As thousands of counties and towns report vote totals, it can be hard to figure out when the results reported so far will reflect the outcome. Past elections can provide a guide.
Want to follow election results like a pro? Here’s what to watch in key states
Why do some states’ elections take longer?
The Constitution sets out broad principles for electing a national government and leaves the details to the states. The choices made by state lawmakers and election officials as they sort out those details affect everything from how voters cast a ballot, how quickly the tabulation and release of results takes place, how elections are kept secure and how officials maintain voters’ confidence in the process.
Florida has nearly all ballots counted on Election Day, while California can take weeks. This is why
Which election forecasters are most accurate?
It may be no surprise that people seek certainty before elections happen, given what they see as the stakes: One recent poll found that about 7 in 10 Americans believe that the future of democracy is at stake in this year’s presidential election. Yet often the forecasters themselves are the first to push back on the characterization that they can tell you what’s going to happen.
How elections forecasters became political ‘prophets’
Voters and voting
Who can vote?
If you want to cast a ballot on Election Day or vote by mail, it helps to know the rules.
Who can vote in US elections, and what steps must you take to do so?
How does early voting work?
Voting before Election Day is much more common today than it was roughly 50 years ago. Yet it is highly politicized as voting in the 2024 presidential election is already underway.
How voting before Election Day became so widespread and so political
What are the key battleground states?
In a closely contested presidential election, as many expect 2024 to be, the results in a few bellwether counties in the key battleground states are likely to decide the outcome, just as they did in the past two general elections. Here’s a look at those that might matter the most on Election Day:
Where are the voters who could decide the presidential election?
Why do states run voting differently?
The U.S. general election on Nov. 5 will decide the country’s direction, but it is far from a nationally administered contest. The 50 states and the District of Columbia run their own elections, and each does things a little differently.
Not all elections look the same. Here are some of the different ways states run their voting
How does ranked choice voting work?
An uncommon system of voting could be central to which party controls the U.S. House this fall — or even the presidency. In Maine and Alaska, voters in competitive congressional districts will elect a winner using ranked choice voting. Here’s how it works:
Ranked choice voting could decide which party controls the US House. How does it work?
Election security
How often does voter fraud happen?
Voter fraud does happen occasionally. When it does, we tend to hear a lot about it. It also gets caught and prosecuted. The nation’s multilayered election processes provide many safeguards that keep voter fraud generally detectable and rare, according to current and former election administrators of both parties.
Yes, voter fraud happens. But it’s rare and election offices have safeguards to catch it
Are voting systems safe?
Election officials rely on various pieces of technology. Every office does things a little bit differently. In November’s presidential election, nearly every ballot cast will have a paper record that can be used to obtain an accurate count even if there are errors or cyberattacks.
Voting systems have been under attack since 2020, but are tested regularly for accuracy and security
Will votes be hand counted?
Controversies over hand counting have flared periodically in pockets of the country before the 2024 presidential election, even though research has shown that it is more prone to error, costlier and likely to delay results.
Election conspiracy theories fueled a push to hand-count votes, but doing so is risky and slow
Can I watch the election process?
Feeds and live videos streaming from election sites across the country are an effort by election officials to demystify voting and provide greater transparency to a process that in recent years has been subject to intense scrutiny, misinformation and false claims of widespread fraud.
On a screen near you: Officials are livestreaming the election process for more transparency
How do legal election disputes work?
America’s court system has no formal role in the election process, and judges generally try not to get involved because they don’t want to be seen as interfering or shaping a partisan outcome, said Paul Schiff Berman, a professor at George Washington University Law School. But election disputes have increasingly landed in court since Bush v. Gore, Berman said.
Courts could see wave of election lawsuits, but experts say bar to change outcome is high
Polls and surveys
Can poll predict the presidential race?
The presidential race is competitive. That’s about as much as the national polls can tell us right now, even if it looks like Democrat Kamala Harris is down in one poll or Republican Donald Trump is up in another.
Will the polls be right in 2024? What polling on the presidential race can and can’t tell you
Do polls represent me?
Chances are, you have never been contacted for an election poll. But the dozens of high-quality election polls that will be released before Election Day represent a reasonable estimate of the opinions of all Americans.
How a poll can represent your opinion even if you weren’t contacted for it
After the vote
How does the Electoral College work?
The Electoral College is the unique American system of electing presidents. It is different from the popular vote, and it has an outsize impact on how candidates run and win campaigns.
What is the Electoral College and how does the US use it to elect presidents?
Why does the media call elections?
It’s election night, the polls have closed and chances are you’re waiting on one of the major television networks to say who will be the next president. But why does the news media play that role in the first place? Shouldn’t that be the government’s job? Here’s a brief history:
News media don’t run elections. Why do they call the winners?
What is election certification?
For the outcome of this year’s presidential race, it will be the vote count on election night and possibly in the days after that will grab the public’s attention. But those numbers are unofficial until the election is formally certified — a once uneventful process that has become politicized since then-President Trump tried to overturn his reelection loss four years ago.
Election certification is a traditionally routine duty that has become politicized in the Trump era
When do recounts change election winners?
With the American electorate so evenly divided, there will be elections in November close enough that officials will have to recount the votes. Just don’t expect those recounts to change the winner. They rarely do, even when the margins are tiny.
Don’t count on a recount to change the winner in close elections this fall. They rarely do
Read more about how U.S. elections work at Explaining Election 2024, a series from The Associated Press aimed at helping make sense of the American democracy. The AP receives support from several private foundations to enhance its explanatory coverage of elections and democracy. See more about AP’s democracy initiative here. The AP is solely responsible for all content.