The National Task Force on Election Crises wants major media outlets to detail how they will project winners as a result of the expected surge of mail ballots.
The task force, a consortium of election experts and academics, made the request in a letter to outlets on Wednesday, Politico noted.
Specifically, it wants the outlets to detail how they’re adapting exit poll data and surveys to account for the increase in mail ballots and how they will contextualize discrepancies from results released on Election Day and final results, Politico noted.
The organization is also asking for details on how the outlets will cover a candidate who declared victory before a winner is projected.
“We know that there is a furious race to call the winner in every election cycle. But this year needs to be different,” Rajiv Chandrasekaran, the head of policy and strategy at the Emes Project and a former editor at The Washington Post, said via a spokesperson for the group. “With such a large number of absentee ballots that will be cast in so many battleground states, the rush to be first could result in getting it wrong.
Politico said battleground states like Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin cannot start processing or counting mail ballots until Election Day, meaning definitive results in those states are exceedingly unlikely that night.
President Donald Trump said Thursday the results “may never be accurately determined.”
Jeffrey Rodack ✉
Jeffrey Rodack, who has nearly a half century in news as a senior editor and city editor for national and local publications, has covered politics for Newsmax for nearly seven years.
© 2025 Newsmax. All rights reserved.