2024 ELECTION

New Video: What Happens After You Cast Your Ballot

Democracy Maps
2 min readOct 9, 2024

Imagine this: it’s Election Day. You’ve cast your ballot at your local polling place. Proudly wearing an “I Voted” sticker on your shirt, you feel like a responsible citizen participating in democracy. When you get home, your favorite news outlet has already projected a winner. But you wonder: “Is it truly possible to count, verify, and certify a presidential election in just a few hours?”

It’s National Voter Education Week, and in a time where voter confidence is suffering and election denialism is surging, it’s important that voters understand how their vote is counted, why results take time, and how results are verified and finalized.

Released today, a new video from the Movement Advancement Project explains the critical processes that take place after voting ends that help to protect the accuracy, integrity and security of our election system. This resource is drawn from MAP’s new report on post-election processes and the Democracy Maps, which track dozens of election-related policies.

How Does Your Vote Get Counted?

Our election system is complex and varies across every state. But, as shown in the video below, there are general steps that every state follows in the post-election process.

MAP video explainer: “How Does Your Vote Get Counted?” (available here)

▸▸ Learn more

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Democracy Maps

Democracy Maps tracks more than 50 laws and policies on elections and voting. Project of Movement Advancement Project, an independent, nonprofit think tank.