With minutes to go for the first projected results, here's quick recap of how they work.



While in India, most TV channels start announcing trends for seats, all US TV networks and, increasingly, news websites, start calling or declaring states in favour of one or the other Presidential candidate within minutes of voting ending in that state.



This declaration of the winner of a state is based on previous voting patterns (who has won that state for years) and exit polls.



Where the counting is closer, as in the Battleground States, the networks wait until they have much more actual voting data before projecting a state in favour of a particular candidate.

