AP readies record level of staffing for 2024 election
Add Axios as your preferred source to
see more of our stories on Google.
AP executive editor Julie Pace and deputy Washington bureau chief Steven Sloan look over the shoulder of political editor Ashley Thomas as she files the first AP news alert on Super Tuesday, March 3, 2020. Photo: Jon Elswick/AP
The Associated Press will have more than 5,000 people working on election night, a new record in the company's 178-year history of calling elections, executive editor Julie Pace told Axios.
Why it matters: Thousands of newsrooms in the U.S. and globally rely on AP's data to cover the elections. Ahead of 2024, the not-for-profit news cooperative faces new challenges related to trust and misinformation.
- Specifically, determining the number of uncounted votes in any given race has become more difficult, due to a surge in mail-in ballots, a popular practice left over from the COVID era.
- The absence of race calls while votes are still being counted is where misinformation can flourish, Pace said.
Zoom in: To get ahead of false narratives, Pace said AP is doubling down on transparency efforts that show how they do their work and explain how they call races.
- Live video will be "huge," she noted. "We've had this huge footprint all across the country for so long, and I think live video is actually helping us just show it more and really bringing people kind of behind the scenes."
- This year, AP will produce 24 hours of continuous live coverage across the U.S. on Election Day, with more than 30 live video shots from every battleground state and more. It will feature live video from voting locations in over 11 key states.
- "We're not trying to do a lot of punditry," Pace said. "We're not trying to do a lot of analysis. It's just raw video, letting people see what's happening on the ground as it's playing out."
By the numbers: AP will count the vote in 7,000 state, local and federal election races this November, the majority of which (roughly 5,000) has more than one candidate on the ballot.
- It will make as many as 21,000 race updates per hour. Those race calls include ballot measures, which will be analyzed in real time to show national trends, Pace said.
- Roughly 5,000 people will be working for AP on election night. That number includes full-time employees, vote count reporters and contractors.
Zoom out: The stakes are higher than ever for AP, which has seen its customer base for election data grow by 30% following the 2020 election.
- "We've seen international interest in U.S. elections really increase over the last several years," Pace said.
- The switch at the top of the Democratic ticket from Joe Biden to Kamala Harris drove a huge spike in international attention to its election content, she said.
- AP's election night map, which shows real-time updates of races being called, will be translated into 18 languages this year.
The big picture: AP accurately called 100% of the elections for U.S. House, Senate, gubernatorial and presidential races in 2020. But for much of the public, particularly among Republicans, confidence in vote counting has waned.
- A commitment to transparency will be key in maintaining the public's trust in the ballot-counting process, Pace said.
- Ahead of this year's election, trust in mass media has hit a historic low, per Gallup. Trust declines have been driven largely by younger populations who are more likely to get their news online and from social media.
- AP has already begun publishing explainers that address its methodology. It's investing much more in data visualizations this year than ever before, mostly to serve local newsrooms.
