Try not to sleep while you wait for next week’s election results. They will come eventually. (fcafotodigital/E+ via Getty Images)
For more than a hundred years, all kinds of media tried to be the first to publish the results of the presidential election. While that urge still exists, experts and analysts are now more concerned with accuracy than speed.
That’s because of the 2020 election. A raging pandemic, a divided country, a close contest, failed elections, false presidential claims of voter fraud and uncertainty had everyone worried. Then came the January 6, 2021 attack on the US Capitol, which meant the election was about more than just the presidency – it was about democracy itself.
The most important thing now is not that you are first, but that you are right. In recent decades, Americans have become accustomed to media organizations declaring the winners of races in the hours or days after polls close, but those are not official results. They are projections based on the available unofficial information. The formal results of the election are verified and certified through a process that takes weeks to months — and possibly longer if lawsuits are filed.
A wrong decision could lead to violence, especially since Donald Trump has yet to say he will accept the outcome of the 2024 election if he loses.
Media figures and election officials are preparing Americans for the fact that we may have to wait some time before we get an accurate call. Just like in 2020, they use metaphors to shape the audience’s expectations. But this year they are also trying to explicitly define the nation’s perception of time, in terms of which results count as on time or as delayed.
Don’t be confused by mirages
A metaphor is a linguistic device that describes something in terms of something else, usually to emphasize an important idea. When we see a football team like the Bears, we know that they are not literally animals, but that they are fierce. As a researcher of presidential rhetoric and political campaigns, I know it’s important to notice metaphors because they often shape public perception.
As members of the media prepare themselves and the public for an uncertain election night, they worry that Americans will be misled by false or incomplete information when they first file. CNN Politics’ Fredreka Schouten and Sara Murray write: “Election officials are concerned that delays in counting could give the public a false sense of who wins the election.” Pennsylvania’s Republican secretary of state added: “It’s clearly a concern.” And so, as in 2020, they once again use the metaphor of “mirage.”
A mirage is an optical illusion, something that looks real but is not. Old adventure films showed a mirage of water in a desert. Lost explorers with empty canteens excitedly ran to a sparkling oasis, only to find nothing but sand.
In 2020, no one was quite sure whether the initial results would show a red or a blue mirage, so they suggested this could vary by state. For example, some states, such as Florida and Arizona, counted ballots as they came in, even before Election Day. In those states, Vox reported, early “results could appear overwhelmingly favorable to Joe Biden and other Democratic candidates.”
In 2024, the overwhelming expectation is that early returns in this year’s key states will look better for Republicans. Reporter Nick Corasaniti of The New York Times wrote that “Democratic operatives” have come to expect “the red mirage,” the result of many more Democrats than Republicans choosing to vote by mail, leading to late Democratic votes. are counted.” The Washington Post editorial board worried in September 2024 that Trump “used this so-called red mirage in 2020 to declare victory and insist that the counting should stop.” The implication was clear: the fear that he would do this again.
People tend to see what they want to see. Those lost explorers want and need water, just as Trump craves victory. And mirages are partly self-deception. Partisans want that beautiful image of triumph, blue or red seas flowing across the screens on election night. These sentiments explain why the mirage metaphor works well for the media: it signals that campaigns and the public see what they hope for, not what is there. Wait, the metaphor tells us. Wait until we know it’s real.
Waiting doesn’t mean it’s too late
To make waiting easier, the media have also explicitly tried to shape the public’s perception of time. This isn’t a new idea: the ancient Greeks used the term “kairos” to talk about timing in public speeches—when we should speak, how we define time in that speech, and what kind of times we live in.
For example, an NBC report catalogs the changes several states have made since 2020 to speed up counting, but nevertheless notes that “in the event of a close race, a handful of key battleground states could keep Americans waiting well past Election Day. ” In early October 2024, Arizona’s secretary of state told a group at Harvard that the results would take “thirteen days and we’re not doing it sooner because we’re going to do it right.”
At that same Harvard meeting, Pennsylvania Secretary of State Al Schmidt challenged the concept that taking time to count votes constituted a “delay.”
“It’s not a delay at all. It takes time to count millions of votes, with integrity, especially if you can’t start until 7 a.m. on election morning,” Schmidt said.
Taken together, the two persuasion strategies urge patience. A mirage will appear, but it is false, seductive and dangerous. It does not reflect reality. Reality will come in time, at the right time, at the right moment. This is not a procrastination because it takes time to get everything right. These elections entail enough dangers, according to these officials and the media. All Americans must take – or give – the time to get the count right.
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article. Some of the material was previously published on November 3, 2020.
John M. Murphy is a professor of communications at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Through its opinion section, Kansas Reflector works to amplify the voices of people who are affected by public policy or excluded from public debate. Find information here, including how to submit your own comments.
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