When can you call an election?

Let’s talk about the election for a minute. Not which candidate for President or anything like that, but how the media (and candidates) are going to want call the election for one candidate or another before the result is truly known.

Over the years I’ve repeatedly heard something along the lines of “you don’t know the results of the election until every vote is counted.” While I can appreciate the sentiment, mathematically speaking there is a point prior to that when the result of any election is truly known. That point is when the difference in votes between the candidates is greater than the number of votes remaining to be counted.

For example, let’s say Candidate A leads Candidate B by 10,000 votes. When the number of votes remaining to be counted drops to 9,999, it becomes literally impossible for Candidate B to win. That’s the point where the results of that election are truly known.

Anyone who tries to call the election prior to this point is guessing. The guess could be based on sophisticated models and voter statistics, and the guess may ultimately turn out to be correct, but it’s still a guess.

There is a point where I think the guess becomes a “good” guess, though. Let’s say that Candidate A was leading Candidate B the polls by 20%, 60% to 40%. And let’s say that the polls have 5% error. If we subtract the error from Candidate A, we get a 55/45 election. In this case, we divide the number of votes Candidate A is leading Candidate B is leading by 55%. For a lead of 10,000 votes, when there 18,182 votes still left to count, there’s a good chance that Candidate A has won. But it’s still a guess – if the polls are actually wrong by a lot, then this guess could be wrong.

So if you see a media outlet or a candidate calling an election one way or another when the number of uncounted ballots is much more than the difference in votes between the two candidates, don’t believe them. It may turn out to be true in the end, but it also may not. The media outlet or candidate may be trying to manipulate you (even if it’s just for more clicks/eyeballs and advertising revenue) instead of honesty reporting the state of the election.