| | | |  | How do you call an election (seriously)? Two weeks from tomorrow we will know who our next president will be. Lol, jk! As Elahe Izadi wrote, if history is a guide, election night will probably be “election week, or weeks.” Izadi dove into the brass tacks of how the Associated Press calls elections: This year, the news service will call 6,823 winners — assuming no races go to runoffs — including winners in every statewide, House and state legislative race. It’s a massive endeavor, involving more than 5,000 people, and one that the AP internally refers to as “the single largest act of journalism that exists,” says Executive Editor Julie Pace. | | | | | “ | We know that when we call the race, it has to be right. There’s no other option.” | | - Julie Pace (pictured above, far right), executive editor of the AP. | | | | The AP wants to be more transparent about its methods after 2020’s squeaker of an election, which was followed by a barrage of misinformation and — as you may recall — a certain Jan. 6 insurrection. A whole bunch of media outlets rely on the AP to call election results. So how does the AP actually do it? How do you call an election? (I’m singing this phrase to the tune of “How Do You Talk to an Angel?” — the theme song from the short-lived ’90s TV show “The Heights.”) AP’s vote-calling operation includes: - About 4,000 freelancers tracking vote counts on-site at election offices.
- About 800 vote entry clerks who crunch numbers and double-check reported votes.
- About 60 people who focus exclusively on calling the winner.
- A designated race caller and analyst assigned to every state. If they both agree on the results of a state, the decision is kicked to a decision editor, and if everyone agrees on the result, the state is called.
Basically, it takes a whole bunch of experts working really hard. I’m tempted to roll out the cliché that “It Takes a Village,” but, um … that phrase carries a bit of electoral baggage. |  | | (Nick Oxford for The Washington Post) | | Meanwhile! In Texas! Ben Terris and Jesús Rodríguez headed to Fort Worth to talk to Texas Democrats who — like Bonnie Tyler before them — are holding out for a hero, in Rep. Colin Allred (D-Tex.), who is campaigning for Ted Cruz’s Senate seat. One woman named Ann Johnston (pictured above) showed her support for Allred by modifying her Beto T-shirt from the last push for a Lone Star Democratic senator. It’s not exactly likely that Allred will win. As Terris and Rodríguez wrote, Dems haven’t won statewide office in 30 years and Texas hasn’t gone blue for a president in almost 50 years. But some Allred supporters believe it’s not as quixotic as it sounds. One poll was promising, and Allred’s bona fides — a football star, a civil rights lawyer, raised by a schoolteacher — are about as good as they can get for a Texas Democrat. | “ | Allred comes off as the type of candidate a Democratic engineer would have constructed for the express purpose of winning a statewide race in Texas.” | | - Ben Terris and Jesús Rodríguez on Senate hopeful Colin Allred. | | | | I’ll leave the prognosticating and predicting for the experts (see: thousands of them at the AP). But reading this story, I was reminded of the words of my late aunt, who grew up in Omaha and lived in Georgia for many years: “People forget that in a lot of states, almost half the population voted for the candidate that lost.” Election results are binary: There’s a winner and a loser. States and the people who live in them are not. It’s something I’ll try to remember two weeks from tomorrow. |  | | (Emily Kask for The Washington Post) | | Okay, my pulse is rising just from imagining Nov. 5. Which is why I keep fantasizing about spending election night in Green Bank, W.Va. ICYMI, that’s home to the Green Bank Observatory, which has the largest steerable telescope in the world (pictured above). As Travis M. Andrews wrote, “Its 2.3-acre dish can study quasars and pulsars, map asteroids and planets, and search for evidence of extraterrestrial life.” The Green Bank Observatory has supersensitive equipment, so the government restricts radio frequencies, WiFi and cellphone signals in the area. As a result, people who worry about the impact of such signals on their health have flocked to the region. They call themselves “electrosensitives.” Electrosensitive I am not. Electionsensitive? Very much so. Who wants to camp with me in Green Bank on Nov. 5? | | | | Photo of the day: Jordy Arthur | | | (Marvin Joseph/The Washington Post) | | When people think fashion, they usually don’t think of Belgium. If they, do they probably think of the Antwerp Six. Jordy Arthur (pictured above in one of his creations) wants to change that. This year, he was among six ambassadors selected for Belgium’s fashion week. He’s hoping to raise the fashion profile of Belgium one outrageous look at a time. | | Armani. Armani. Ah-Ah-Armani. | | | (Jonas Gustavsson for The Washington Post) | | Giorgio Armani had a rare runway show in New York. Rachel Tashjian has the tea. As Tashjian wrote, Armani had a profound effect on fashion in his embrace of celebrity culture and celebrities' embrace of his designs. Today, new generations are discovering him and older generations are rediscovering him. Richard Gere’s suits in “American Gigolo” may have looked a bit passé a few years ago, but fashion is fickle and cyclical (ficklical?) and it seems that fashion cognoscenti are stoked on Armani once again. Personally, I can’t hear the name “Armani” without hearing the Pet Shop Boys deadpanning “Armani, Armani, ah-ah-Armani” in their underrated paean to Italian youth culture, “Paninaro.” For this, I am grateful. | | | If someone forwarded this to you, subscribe here! If you want to get in touch, email here! And if you liked it, please tell a friend! Additional research by Olivia McCormack. | | | | | | |
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