US National Election Testing Advisory

EDITORS:

NEWS DIRECTORS:

NOT FOR BROADCAST, PUBLICATION OR USE ONLINE

The Nevada Democratic caucuses are Saturday, Feb. 22.

The South Carolina Democratic presidential primary is Saturday, Feb. 29.

Super Tuesday is Tuesday, March 3, and includes these states:

-Alabama presidential primary

-American Samoa Democratic territorial caucus

-Arkansas presidential primary

-California presidential

-Colorado presidential primary

-Dems Abroad primary (March 3-10)

-Maine presidential primary

-Massachusetts presidential primary

-Minnesota presidential primary

-North Carolina presidential primary

-Oklahoma presidential primary

-Tennessee presidential primary

-Texas presidential primary

-Utah presidential primary

-Vermont Democratic presidential primary

-Virginia Democratic presidential primary

CONTACTS - TESTING, REPORTS, DELIVERY, DOCUMENTATION, SERVICES:

Direct questions about election testing, reports or delivery to AP elections services to AP Customer Support at 877-836-9477 or [email protected]. Premium service details can be found in welcome letters.

Documentation for AP Elections services is available at http://aphelp.ap.org.

Members and customers interested in premium AP Election Services should contact their sales rep or Customer Support at 877-836-9477 or [email protected].

Refer to state election testing advisories via Customer Support for election event and testing details.

TESTING INFORMATION:

Test results are created electronically to test the accuracy of the election night reporting system. They should not be broadcast, published, replicated or posted on websites.

NATIONAL REPORTS AVAILABLE DURING TESTING, ELECTION DAY:

These reports, and their respective slugs, will be included in testing closer to election events:

ELECTION DAY VOTES AND DELEGATE ALLOCATIONS

US—Dem-Pres-All/US—GOP-Pres-All, Election Day vote summaries by state, at :25 and :55

US—Dem-Delg-All/US—GOP-Delg-All, Election Day delegate allocations by state, at :25 and :55

NATIONAL SUMMARY AND STATE-BY-STATE DELEGATE ALLOCATIONS

These two reports will be sent as noted on Election Day and twice daily, at midday and early evening.

US—AP Delegate Count, summary of all allocated Democratic/Republican delegates, at :05

US—AP Deleg Count-Dem-States/US—AP Deleg Count-GOP-States at :45, starting at 2145 EST

IMPORTANT NOTES ABOUT THE NATIONAL DELEGATE SUMMARY:

The midday US—AP Delegate County table will include all updates to the delegate count during the morning. The early evening table will include all updates done that day. In between, stories that include the delegate count may reflect slightly different numbers, if the count has been updated since the midmorning table was released. The differences will disappear once the early evening table is released.

For Democrats, the "Total" column in the table includes only pledged delegates, those won or allocated to candidates based on the results of presidential primaries, caucuses or conventions. For Republicans,

totals include both pledged delegates and unpledged delegates who have endorsed a candidate either in public statements or in interviews with Associated Press reporters.

The first column under "Changes" - the one labeled "ElecDay" - shows how each candidate's total has changed since midnight the day before the last election.

The last two columns under "Changes" show how each candidate's total has changed in the past seven days ("7days") and in the last 30 days ("30days"). For Republicans, the numbers in each of the "Changes" columns include both pledged and unpledged delegates. Thus, the "ElecDay" column will include the number of pledged delegates each candidate won on the most recent Election Day, as well as any unpledged delegate endorsements gained or lost since the beginning of that Election Day.

The table on occasion also will reflect new pledged delegate allocations from previous primaries or caucuses that were not made election night or shortly thereafter. This happens when district level vote breakouts are not immediately available or when the closeness of a race requires waiting until all absentee and provisional ballots are counted. In such cases, the new pledged delegate allocations will show up in the candidate totals and in either the last seven days ("7days") or last 30 days ("30days") column, depending on the date of the earlier election. If the election was more than 30 days ago, the new pledged allocations will show up only in the “Total” column.

When a candidate drops out of either presidential race, the AP relies on state and national party rules to determine the status of that candidate's pledged delegates. The withdrawn candidate's endorsement of another candidate does not automatically move his or her pledged delegates into that candidate's column. Unpledged delegates who had endorsed candidates who withdraw are re-interviewed as soon as possible to determine if they have a new endorsement.

The AP, Washington