Election night is a exciting evening for Americans as we learn who the people have vote to be our next round of leaders.

It can be easy to get caught up in the buzz as results start to come in, but you need to be careful, you understand what exactly is feeding those updates.

It's important to know wher the results you hear come from.

Many news outlets use the Associated Press as a trusted source for election results.

In 2020.

Through their extensive network of reporters, the AP was correct in calling 99.9% of U.S. races and 100% of presidential and congressional races.

So how did they do it?

The AP has reporters in all 50 states that are stationed at vote counting centers on election night.

They collect results as they're being counted and report back to the AP's election system, which keeps tabs as new vote totals come in.

They also closely follow official state sources for accurate tallying.

After several round of checking their calculations.

When it becomes clear that a candidate has reached an insurmountable number of votes for their opponent to overcome AND considering the percentag of ballots left to be counted, the AP will eventually feel safe declaring a winner.

In some cases, the AP will say a race is too close to call, meaning the count is within a certain margin that they do not feel safe declaring a winner.

It's important to remember that even if the AP calls it a race is not technically over until state officials formally certify the results.

This can be days after the election in some cases.

So how do some outlets report on election results before the AP or a state certification?

This is where exi polling often comes into play.

It's also where you need to be careful.

Exit polls are created by surveying voters outside of polling centers.

Reporters will ask voters who they voted for and about the issues that matter most to them.

Done on a large enough scale, this can give news outlets a valuable snapshot of voter sentiment before polls even close.

But that's all exit polls are... a snapshot.

Depending on who was asked and who responded.

Exit polls can often leave out key demographics or make it seem like voters are trending one way.

When the official results show the opposite, the rise in the use of early and absentee voting also makes these exit polls even more unreliable.

They may help news networks fill time on air discussing the election.

But if you take exit polling alone as your source of election news, you may be disappointed when the state certifies the results.

Elections are stressful for everybody.

You're excited to see if your preferred candidate wins, and by the time November rolls around, you've been subjected to months of advertisements.

You're probably ready for it to be over, but we urge you to be patient.

As the votes are officially tallied.

We all deserve these things to be done right.

And that can take time.

Remember, the 2020 presidential election wasn't called until four days after Election Day because we just couldn't be sure until then.

So take a deep breath and trust the process.

The protection of our democracy is more important than being the firs to know who wins any election.