US election 2020: When and where to watch presidential voting
US President Donald Trump and Joe Biden during the first presidential debate at Case Western Reserve University and Cleveland Clinic in Cleveland, Ohio
With less than three weeks to go until the final showdown between Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump and Democratic candidate Joe Bidenfor the United States election 2020,TV networks are facing greater pressure than ever to report election results accurately and without unwarranted speculation.
Top executives at five major news networks of the country are focussing on restraint instead ofspeed; on transparency about what remains unknown; and on a reassuring message that slow results don’t signify a crisis.
How to watch election day's counting?
CBS is using its “Battleground Tracker” that combines polling, files on voter participation, USCensus data and historical patterns.
Walt Disney Co’s ABC News hasvoter integrity units dedicated to topics such as foreign election interference and how the vote is tallied, state by state.
Comcast-owned NBC News has doubled the size of its “Vote Watch” team, which includes 24 correspondents, reporters and producers who specialize in issues such as voting rights and misinformation campaigns. For the past year, the news division has been reporting on voter sentiment in five “bellwether” counties in Florida, Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and Arizona.
This will be the first presidential election in which the major TV networks will get data from different providers, raising the potential for divergent perspectives on election night returns.
Fox Corp’sFox News has partnered with the Associated Press to replace traditional in-person exit polls with online and telephone surveys that aim to reach early and Election Day voters.
The survey data will be combined with real-time results tabulated by the AP to help make projections.
Fox and the AP left the National Election Pool consortium, which includes the three broadcast news networks andCNN. The consortium will rely on the firm Edison Research for exit polls and results as they come in from each precinct. Thompson Reuters has a distribution deal with the NEP for 2020 election data.
According to the executives of the five big networks, slow-but-sure is the ''watchword'' for the US election 2020.
“We will project states’ [results] in the normal way. But getting to that point of confidence ... is a more complicated process, a longer process,” said ABC News President James Goldston. “And we just need to be transparent with the audience about what that looks like.”
Financial Times is also running an online tracker for state-by-state poll with the title 'Biden vs Trump'.For viewing monthly recent developments in voter sentiment, they can also visitFT-Peterson Economic Monitor.
Voters can visit the website of the Center for Information or Vote.org for details on ballots.