The CBC Decision Desk is a critical component to election night coverage — but how does it actually work? CBC’s Julia Knope went behind the scenes to find out.

A note just before we see a large number of polls close.

Tonight, you will see, hear or read something across our coverage along the lines of, “The CBC News Decision Desk is ready to make a projection.” That means our team of experienced journalists has seen enough votes counted to confidently project an outcome on air and online before the results are final.

CBC doesn’t “elect” a winner or “declare” a winner because it’s Canadian voters who choose, not us.

The CBC News/Radio-Canada Decision Desk consists of two parts. The first is a team of journalists assigned to make projections in individual ridings. A second, smaller team examines the totality of results as they come in to project which party will form the government, as well as the Official Opposition.

Each Decision Desk editor studies riding histories, demographics, boundary changes and the candidates — and keeps track of the campaign on a local level. When enough votes have been counted and the editor and the team feel confident, we make our final checks and make a projection.

This is not a race, since there’s no point in being first when you’re wrong. We take the time needed to get it right. When a race is too close to call, our team waits for final results.