Reporting results sounds in principle like the least complicated part of the whole election reporting process. Yet it is remarkable how often it is very poorly carried out. In the Zimbabwe referendum of 2000, not a single newspaper or broadcasting station succeeded in reporting the correct results as issued by the Registrar General's Office!106
A major part of the problem lies with the media themselves - if they cannot correctly copy a column of figures, there is little that the election administrator can do about it. But there is much that can be done to promote accurate and professional results reporting.
Provision of a Media Centre will enormously facilitate media access to results. The mechanisms of counting will vary enormously between centralized and decentralized systems. For the purposes of media reporting, the significant point is whether results are released centrally or locally. If the latter, then media reporting is also likely to be decentralized.
When the latter system of local counts prevails, as in the United Kingdom, a massive media bandwagon has developed for projecting final results out of available results. Provided that no results or projections are released before the end of voting, this is essentially harmless fun (although dressed up in great statistical seriousness). The worst that can be said about it is that it encourages the treatment of an election as a horse race rather than a democratic choice.
What is particularly important, however, when results emerge gradually - especially true of a first-past-the-post constituency system - is that all results are reported promptly and accurately. This is a means of public scrutiny of the counting process and lessens the possibility of manipulation of the count. It is therefore a potentially important media function.
A rather different aspect of results reporting is media coverage of projected results in the form of Exit Polls and Quick Counts.
