The Minnesota Star Tribune newsroom in downtown Minneapolis will be full of organized chaos on election night as the national, state and local vote counts begin to roll in.

Debating national, state and local politics for Minnesota readers was among the paper’s core missions from its earliest days. This historic role is newly vital in recent years as disinformation and disinformation about voting and election results has spread far and wide.

On Tuesday, Star Tribune reporters, photographers and videographers will fan out across Minnesota to interview voters at the polls. And when the polls close, writers, editors and visual journalists will work to deliver election results in key national, state and local races for our digital and print audiences. In total, approximately 125 Star Tribune journalists will be part of the election coverage.

Planning began in January. A group from across the company met for a brainstorming session on the types of stories that would drive engagement and satisfy the curiosity of the Star Tribune audience, said Greg Mees, senior deputy managing editor.

“You plan everything,” Mees said. “You plan for contingencies, we don’t know winners, we know winners on both sides. And we plan for that in advance so we’re ready for anything.”

The poll numbers come from the Associated Press, which has staff stationed in county and precinct offices across the country tasked with recording voting data accurately. The Star Tribune combines those numbers with results from the Minnesota Secretary of State, said CJ Sinner, director of visual data and graphics.

“We have this big flow of backend and code that combines the two in a way that is understandable to people, so they can look up any race that’s happening in the state on our website,” said Sinner. The Star Tribune Live election results scoreboard checks and updates data every 60 seconds, eliminating the need to refresh. Users will be able to enter their addresses to see election results from their own vote or search for any local race in the state.

No other local news organization offers readers all of these race results in one place, Sinner said.