ContestStage

  • This enumeration applies exclusively to election results feeds and is not relevant to pre-election data or officeholder feeds.

  • The ExternalIdentifier entity uses specific stage enumerations to categorize the status of election results, ranging from exit polls to official results.

  • Each stage designation, such as 'exit-polls', 'estimates', 'projections', 'preliminary', and 'official', reflects the source and reliability of the election results data.

  • Stages like 'exit-polls' and 'estimates' represent predictions based on various data sources and models, while 'projections' incorporate actual partial vote counts.

  • 'Preliminary' results are actual vote counts reported by an authoritative source before official certification, whereas 'official' results are those reported or confirmed by a legally responsible source.

The following table lists the enumerations for the contest's stage in the ExternalIdentifier entity:

Stage Description
exit-polls Results are based wholly or almost entirely on exit poll data and other supporting signals or models, but not on actual vote counts.
estimates Results are predicted outcomes based on some combination of collected data, which might or might not include exit polls specifically, and other supporting signals or models. They aren't substantially based on actual vote counts.
projections Results are predicted outcomes that substantially include or are otherwise based on actual partial vote counts, but that might be extrapolated by supported signals or models.
preliminary Results are actual vote or seat counts as reported by an authoritative source, before they are declared to be final by the official source. The authority might or might not be the legally responsible entity, but in any case hasn't certified the results.
official Results are actual vote or seat counts as reported or corroborated by an official, legally responsible, source.
unnamed An unnamed stage in an election that supports multiple stages.