# How do they project election results nowadays?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-they-project-election-results-nowadays/753232>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [April 27, 2016, 2:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-they-project-election-results-nowadays/753232 "2016-04-27T02:15:41Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Page:** 2

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**Author:** ![Tim\_T-Bonham.net](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/46a35a/32.png) [@Tim\_T-Bonham.net](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tim_T-Bonham.net)\
**Post date:** [June 24, 2016, 4:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-they-project-election-results-nowadays/753232/21 "2016-06-24T04:47:39Z")

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> [@boffking](#):
>
> Absentee and pre-election day votes can be counted early. Also, do they wait until the polls close to start tallying the rest of the ballots? It’s possible that at the time the polls close at night, they may have already counted the morning’s ballots.

Here in Minnesota, votes are ‘counted’ when the ballots are inserted into the counting machine – but the totals are not displayed until after voting is done, when the machine is read. And absentee & early votes are just paper ballots – they are held until election day (uncounted) and sent to the appropriate precinct, where the poll workers feed them into the counting machine.

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