For our customers and those who follow our forecasts

To our customers and those who follow our forecasts,

As we finalize our preparations to bring you results and predictions for more than 30,000 U.S. elections starting November 5, from local school board seats to the U.S. presidency, we want to thank you and reaffirm our three-fold commitment:

1. To independently decided results. As a rental decision desk, our media clients range from liberal to conservative, local to national, start-up to legacy companies and streamers to print, radio, broadcast and internet. In 2020, our client, The Bangor Daily News, was the first news outlet in the world to cover the election of Vice President Joe Biden as president. On November 5, we will provide results and forecasts to NewsNation and Scripps local stations. Huffington Post and Newsmax; Streamers like The Daily Wire, Bryan Tyler Cohen and Breaking Points; The Hill, Virginia Public Media and The Bangor Daily News; among other things. Our team, and only our team, decides our races. Every DDHQ client receives the same data and is obliged to display it correctly.
2. Too strict precision. We're not about being first on a call – we value accuracy, and our track record of accuracy matches that of our peers. DDHQ started in 2012 with the conjecture that we could effectively use technology to improve the accuracy and speed of collecting and analyzing election results, and became the first provider to cover the presidency for Donald Trump in 2016 and for Vice President Biden in 2020 proclaimed In 2022, we were the first to gain control of Congress. In 2024 we may or may not be first on the biggest calls, but if we make it, it will be as much due to our pursuit of new approaches as to our adherence to the rigorous process described below that has helped us remain at the forefront Area precision to stay racing calls.
3. To transparency. We value information sharing and transparency so that the public knows they can trust our results. Most Americans are unaware of the process by which the vote they cast is represented in the election night tabulations and graphs they see on their television or phone screen. The design of our democracy has resulted in real-time forecasting of the next President of the United States or control of the U.S. Senate or House of Representatives being taken over by a small group of national news organizations (both for-profit and nonprofit). academic institutions and relatively small companies.

DDHQ is a small business and technology start-up committed to helping pull back the curtain on the process. Here's how we predict the results of all 30,000+ US elections taking place on November 5th:

Our election forecasts reflect months of preparation to leverage the data streams DDHQ collects from several thousand election authorities across the country. In the months leading up to an election, we continually refine our reporting workflow – between on-site reporters, data collection and remote monitoring – to ensure the most accurate and reliable method for each individual election office. In addition to election night results, we also record postal and early voting votes.

On election night, the DDHQ Race Call Team considers a number of factors when making predictions, including:

• How many of the votes are in/how much is still outstanding?
• Where does the incoming vote come from and where are the outstanding votes?
• What type of voters are in both areas and how do they correspond to the current state of the election results?
• What types of voting are there (advance voting, daily voting, postal voting) and which types still have to be reported?

In order for our team to predict an outcome, the data must meet expected and rigorous benchmarks. If this is not the case, the call is held for further analysis. At least two out of three members of our team – made up of academics and data scientists – as well as DDHQ's Director of Data Science must sign off before a forecast is made. We will not call a race until these requirements are met. Additionally, we use a model we developed that has been peer-reviewed and published in the Harvard Data Science Review to support our team in analysis.

Once our call team analyzes these factors and the data and determines that there are simply not enough outstanding votes for the trailing candidate to make up for their disadvantage, the forecast is made.

There are often cases in which a call cannot take place until all votes have been counted. This could be on election night or even days or weeks later.

Our democratic electoral process depends on accurate and trustworthy data. That's why DDHQ continually works to be the most accurate, transparent and comprehensive organization reporting election results.

Regardless of real-time forecasts from any provider, be it DDHQ or our colleagues, US elections are not officially decided until the relevant election officials have completed their required processes and certified the winners.

We have one job: to conduct every election correctly. Thank you for working with us and following us.

Decision Office Headquarters