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How does 12News get election results? Here's the process

As election results start to roll in, here's how our station get them from the Secretary of State's office to your screen.

ARIZONA, USA — 12News is committed to bringing you the most up-to-date information when election results start to roll in Tuesday night.

But, where does our station get numbers from? Here's what you need to know:

How 12News gets its election results:

Our election numbers are collected and published through our partnership with the Associated Press, usually referred to in the newsroom as "the AP," or "AP." It's the largest newsgathering organization in the country.  AP collects votes at the local level from county clerks, county websites and state-run electronic data feeds.

In Arizona, the AP gets the numbers directly from the Arizona Secretary of State's office's electronic feed.

Once results start being reported, they are passed automatically to us and split into two streams, one for television and one for online.

The television stream results appear in our station's on-screen graphics and the horizontal text "ticker" at the bottom of the screen during broadcasts. The online stream flows into our website's elections page. Both streams report the same numbers, but are displayed in different locations.

The Maricopa County Attorney’s race is the only exception to this rule. Since it’s a county-level race, our station will not have the AP's feed for it. 

Our station will be hand-entering those results because of this. The results will be displayed as soon as they're posted on the Maricopa County Elections page.

RELATED: Was your Arizona 2022 election ballot counted? Here's how to check

When do we announce a winner in an election race?

When determining who won and lost an election, our station also places our trust in the AP.

We won't mark a race with a winner until the AP announces the winner electronically.

We are an NBC affiliate station, but even though NBC News calls the winners of races independently from the AP, our station won't call a race based on what NBC News reports and will continue to rely on the AP.

If there is a "winner" checkmark next to a candidate's name on our broadcast or website, that candidate has been declared the winner by the AP.

Decision 2022

Arizonans will go to the polls this November for the midterm elections. Here's everything you need to know leading up to election night.

RELATED: Counting until 2023? New Arizona law on ballot recounts could prolong wait for midterm results

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