Create a Race

An election is composed of individual races where each race represents a single item on the Election Day ballot.

Depending on how the data is delivered for your location (by precinct, by county, statewide, etc.), you may have more than one race in the ENPS election for each ballot question. You can choose to feed any or all of these to your CG device or Website or you can create special races to tally all the other races, so precinct-by-precinct results can be reported as a single total, for example.

Create Races Automatically

If you have previously created a capture file from test election data, or if you are creating your election during a live test, ENPS can automatically create races for you from the wire data.

1. Open the election on the ENPS client.

2. Select Setup tab > Activate Wire Updates, with the election open.

   

   Only one election per ENPS server can be actively receiving wire updates at a time.

3. Open the ENPS server.

4. Open the News Object Manager (NOM).

5. Select Window > Election Processing.

6. Check the Build races from wire data checkbox on the right.

   

   When the test wire is ingested or when live wire tests are underway, ENPS will parse the wire and create races in your saved election.

   Uncheck the Build races from wire data checkbox immediately after your races are built.

   It should not be checked again prior to or on Election Day, unless you need to rebuild your races for some reason.

It is likely that you will have to update the race data by manually editing and checking the races, for example for race titles. You should also double-check all total precinct entries.

Create Races Manually

For ballot items not being covered on the AP wire, you will need to create your races manually.

To create a new race:

1. Select the Setup ribbon

2. Click the New button.

   The New Race window will appear.

   

3. Fill in the race details as desired.

4. Click Save.

Once you have created a new race, you can return to this screen by selecting the Election ribbon and then clicking Details.

For example:

Details Tab

The following table describes the fields found in a race's Details tab.

Field	Description
Race Name	If you are entering information manually, use a scheme that will make it easy for the producer and CG operator to organize and group races, and remember that one of your sort options is alphabetical. This title can be exported to the CG output. This is automatically filled in for races built automatically from wire data, though you are able to change this if you wish. Every race must have a unique Race Name (also referred to as a Short Name).
Wire Slug	Slug of the Associated Press story. The slug must be identical to the slug on the wire, e.g. BC-CO-StHou-GOP-Contested. It should be the full slug up to, but not including, the comma at the end of the slug line. Do not change this unless instructed by AP. Doing so may cause these results to not update properly on Election Night.
Section	Segment from the wire story where the race can be found (e.g. "Ohio"). Just as with the slug, this should be identical to the wire and is case-sensitive. Both slug and section should be filled in automatically if the races are built from wire data as described above. Do not change this unless instructed by AP. Doing so may cause these results to not update properly on Election Night.
Total Pcts	The number of precincts that will be available for this race. Elections officials often update this number, sometimes even as late as Election Day, due to absentee ballots. Stations should double-check with their local election authorities on Election Day to insure that no additional precincts have been added.
Pcts Reporting	The number of precincts reporting results. Elections will compare the precinct count with the number of precincts reported in the wire story and will calculate a percentage reporting. If the number of precincts reported exceeds the Total Pcts that has been entered in the Race Details Screen, Elections will suppress this field to CG output. If Pcts Reporting is greater than Total Precincts, Elections will dash out the Precincts results.
Part of Selected Groups	Indicates that this race is part of a group. If you have existing groups, you may check which groups this race will be in from this area. To delete a race from a group, you would uncheck the group name in this field.
Comments	Enter notes about each race. These comments can be displayed on screen for use by your anchors on Election Night, for example, by selecting the Comments button on the Election ribbon.
Candidates	See the separate table in Candidates.
Prev Race	Moves to the previous race in the election, displaying the details of that race and allowing you to edit them. If there were any unsaved changes to the race you moved away from, you will be prompted to save those changes.
Next	Moves to the next race in the election, displaying the details of that race and allowing you to edit them. If there were any unsaved changes to the race you moved away from, you will be prompted to save those changes.
Save	Saves any changes you have made to the current race.
Exit	Closes the Edit Race window. If there are any unsaved changes, you will be prompted to save.

Candidates

Use the following table to help you fill out the Candidate information in a race.

Field	Description
Wire name	This should be automatically generated from the wire data. Do not change this unless instructed by AP. Doing so may cause these results to not update properly on Election Night. For referendum questions, the wire name will probably be yes or no.
Display name	The name as it will appear on the CG and/or website. To edit the display name, without losing what has already been entered, you must first press Ctrl Backspace or Space.
Party	The candidate's political party.
Incumbent	Y if the candidate is incumbent; N if not. Many sites add this information to the display name - John Doe (i) - , as including it for every candidate may not be desirable.
Leader	Indicates which candidate is leading the vote count by displaying an X in this column. This field is calculated automatically, even for manually-entered races.
Total	Current vote count for the candidate. Count and Pcts reporting fields will be updated by the incoming election wire feed or manual entry using the Results window. Elections will always put the higher vote count candidate first, regardless of the percentages.
%	The percentage of votes that the candidate has received. Elections will calculate this automatically. Elections will not round the percentages up to 100% until all precincts are reporting. The value will remain at 99% until that time. You cannot add this information using the Race Details box.
Win	The projected winner. This can be updated automatically from the wire data or can be changed manually from the "Results" screen. The option to identify winners from wire results is available from the Options tab in Race Details.
Image	Image tag for the CG. This field is case-sensitive.

Options Tab

Use this tab to set how election results are processed.

Option	Description
Number of winners	Specify the number of winners to be identified for an individual race. If this value is not set, the default value of one winner per race will be used. If a user attempts to manually identify additional winners for a particular race, ENPS will display a warning message. If a wire update indicates more winners than the value set here, no winners will be identified automatically. If the number of allowed winners is changed to be less than the number of winners currently identified, all winners identified for that race will be reset.
Automatically select winner at 100% precincts reporting, unless winner(s) manually selected	Allow the Elections client to automatically select the winner based on incoming wire data when all of the precincts are reporting. Selecting this box will not affect entries that have been entered manually.
This race summarizes totals from other races & Get results from other race(s)	If you have reporters at several county offices, the Elections client can summarize the county data to give you an overall total for your coverage area. Example 1 A congressional district crosses county lines. The summary race is District 15. In that case, you would check the This race summarizes totals from other races and Get results from other races checkboxes. You might have: County A race + County B race + County C race = District 15 summary race. You want Elections to add together counties A, B, C to get the total. Example 2 Congressional race (all in one county) but also covered on the wire. You then would have: District 16 Manual (your staffers calling in results) District 16 Wire District 16 "Get" race which "Get results" from the two above but would not summarize them. Whichever of the two had the higher number would be used.
Allow manual entries	Allows a user to manually input percentages and other data to export to the CG. Races that allow manual entry may also take numbers from the wire. The Elections client will take and air whichever is the higher number.
Leader on Top	Send pages to the CG with the leader on top and all other candidates in descending order.
Hot	Allows you to quickly access your most important races. Makes the race a member of the "Hot Races" group, which is a choice from the View menu.
Get results from other race(s)	When this option is selected, users can select other races in the election and results from those races will be fed into this race. See examples in the This race summarizes totals from other races and Get results from other race(s) options above. This option must be selected for This race summarizes totals from other races to work properly.

Refer to Configure CG Output for details on how to set the CG information of the Race Details screen.

Organize Races Using Groups

Groups allow you to combine different types of races together for easy reference. For example you could group "Senate," "House," "State House," or you may choose to group races by county or city. You can also organize groups for particular data entry assignments.

To create a new group, select Setup > Group.

A dialog box will appear in which you have the option to create a new group by selecting the New button. You can also delete existing groups from this screen. Group membership is indicated on the Race Details screen for individual races.

A group called Hot Races already exists in the Elections client, and can be accessed through the Hot Races button on the Election ribbon.

Adding races to groups can be done in one of two ways: using the Ribbon or via Race Details.

To add a race to a group using the Ribbon:

While viewing races in Elections, select the race or races that you want to add to a group and select the Add Selected Races button in the Setup ribbon. Choose the group that you want those races to be added to from the drop-down menu.

To add a race to a group from the Race Details window:

Select a race and click the Details button in the Election ribbon. From the Race Details screen, you can select which groups you want the race to be a part of in the Part of Selected Groups pane.