who declared them winners, other than themselves, huh?
All the votes had not even been counted yet.... the STATE does NOT declare winners until the State CERTIFIES the votes, silly Willy!
By law, elections authorities are REQUIRED to report the results periodically during the voting process. This is exactly to prevent fraud such as occurred in Broward County Florida.
These results are then used by the media to provide "Live Election results" for millions of viewers.
How on Earth do you think ALL THE MAJOR NETWORKS can give their predictions on the night of elections? You thought they guessed?
While the results are later "Certified", the incremental reports are supposed to reflect true and accurate live updates of the results.
ALL the major networks have done this for a Very long time.
I'm surprised you were unaware of this???