Publicizing election results is a process that must be handled with great care. As the first results available are usually interim results that may need amending or adding up later in the process, careful consideration needs to be given to how and when results are published.
Votes are counted in many different ways. In most cases, votes are counted for the first time at the polling stations on election day, after the polls close. In other cases, votes are taken to counting centres before they are counted. In some jurisdictions, these first counts are the only counts made, and the ballot papers are looked at again only if the election result is challenged. or a recount is requested by a candidate, a party, or a court.
In other jurisdictions, votes counted once at the polling station level are taken to a counting centre after election day, and rechecked and recounted, recognizing that mistakes are common in the initial count. Votes may be recounted again and again at several stages in the process, depending on the complexity of the electoral system, the need for accuracy, and whether the result is challenged.
Election results can be released at various stages in this process. In some cases, results are announced progressively on election night, as each counting unit reports its count. For example, in Australia, as each polling station completes its count, the votes cast for each candidate are reported to a central counting room, where results are cumulated for each candidate in each electoral district, and publicly displayed on a counting board and on computer, and are widely broadcast in the media. Under this system, close results can teeter from one likely outcome to another, as results come in from different areas. While this makes for an exciting event, this level of uncertainty might not be desirable in a more volatile country.
In other countries, results for each electoral district are not announced until all of the polling stations have reported their results to the district electoral officer, so that the first published interim results will be close to the final outcome.
While some jurisdictions permit voting at polling stations only on a fixed day, others permit voting by several different methods, to cater for voters who are unable to be at a polling station on election day. These can include absentee, mail-in ballots, or advance poll ballots, or mobile voting stations, where voters are visited by polling officials in remote locations, hospitals, nursing homes, prisons, or even their own homes. It is not always possible to count these types of votes on or before election night, so that the tallies of these votes have to be added to any interim results announced on election night.
With more complex electoral systems, particularly those that involve distribution of preferences, counting may take days, weeks, or in extreme cases, months. In these cases, results are usually released progressively at each stage of the process.
