TEMPLE, Texas — Depending on whether you're watching 6 News or you're on our website, you'll probably notice the Electoral College numbers are different and there's a reason why.
6 News sources results from NBC News and The Associated Press. Both outlets have processes in place to handle the influx of votes, counts and results.
Our website uses totals from The AP while on-air you'll see totals from NBC.
AP COUNTING
The Electoral College totals you see here are populated by The Associated Press.
As it has for more than 170 years, The AP counts the nation's vote in real-time and reports the results of presidential, congressional and state elections.
AP uses that vote count to declare winners in some 7,000 races, so the world knows who wins not only the White House but control of Congress and every state legislature.
To do so, AP uses a 50-state network of local stringers who Scott said have trusted relationships with county clerks and other local officials built up over years of election night reporting. These stringers collect votes at a local level, while other AP journalists gather results from state or county websites, as well as via electronic data feeds from states.
NBC COUNTING
ABC, NBC, CBS and CNN are in Edison Research’s National Election Pool. The Associated Press used to be a part of this pool, but they now run their own projection models with the AP VoteCast.
Both the National Election Pool and AP VoteCast collect data that is used to project races, with exit polls being a key component of both. The AP explains VoteCast also reaches beyond exit polls -- reaching voters by mail, phone, and online like a traditional poll -- to account for early and mail-in voters. The National Election Pool expanded in-person early voting interviews this year to account for increases in such voting.
The different media outlets who call races separately follow similar methodology and decision-making to the AP, even if it’s not entirely the same. That means that they may call races soon after each other, but not call them at the exact same time.
This is true even of the networks that use the National Election Pool. For example, ABC News has opted to take longer to call races than other media outlets this Election Day and has generally waited until after precincts begin to report vote counts to call races.
NBC says they make most of their calls on election night races “based on analyses of precinct- and county-level vote returns.”
Fox News, on the other hand, call their races based on Fox News Voter Analysis. They work in partnership with the AP and their VoteCast, and thus use the same methods they do to take into account early votes.