By: Gabbie Granoff '27
Not all journalism students can say they worked during a pivotal political moment, but junior Anthony Buscarino played a key role during election night last November.
Buscarino, a junior journalism major and political science minor, worked for the Associated Press as a vote entry operator for the 2024 presidential election. Buscarino has a lot of interest in elections, so when he saw the job posting on Handshake, he leapt at the opportunity to apply. After completing the interview process, he got the job. After going through three training sessions, he was ready for election night.
As a vote entry operator, Buscarino helped the Associated Press deliver election results to the public. Buscarino was one of many people in the multi-step process. First, vote count reporters collect data at a local level. Then the reporters call in the results to a vote entry clerk who enters the data into the Associated Press’ system. This is where Buscarino fell into the process. Throughout election night, he took calls from reporters in states including Georgia, Texas, Iowa, New Jersey, and Montana. Buscarino then entered the results into AP’s database.
“What I did was just one piece in a very large machine,” Buscarino said. “The entire nation and many other people across the world look at the AP results for the election. If the small amount of data I put in contributed to the final result…then I think it made a good contribution.”
After voter data is entered into the system, results are verified to ensure that the vote count is accurate. Following verification, results are sent out to the Associated Press’ customers to be reported on air and online. Results are continuously updated until the race is called and the results are final.
“I learned with the Associated Press that covering an election is not an easy feat,” Buscarino said. “It was kind of interesting to learn just how closely journalists and organizations like the Associated Press give the public a view of democracy because really no other organization is able to mobilize election results or anything like that as fast as the AP.”
Buscarino believes that his experience with the Worcester Business Journal and The Daily Collegian helped him get the job. He has also worked as a poll worker so he was familiar with the election process. Buscarino said that his reporting classes at UMass helped prepare him for the job by training him to be inquisitive and use a careful eye.
“Being able to just expect the unexpected and be able to think on your feet helped because a lot of it was using logic,” he said.