Denise Roth has a crucial role to play this election night.
As an administrator for the General Services Administration (GSA), her job is to officially determine whether Donald Trump or Hillary Clinton has won the presidential election once the last polls close. The media will likely have already called the race, but she is the first official to do so, the Washington Post reports.
Roth’s declaration is part of a small ceremony at the GSA’s Washington headquarters, which prompts the next step in the transition of power from President Obama to the president-elect, the Post notes.
During that ceremony, Roth signs paperwork that gives millions of dollars to the winner’s taxpayer-funded transition teams and provides office space, computers, money for salaries and administrative support for the “mammoth undertaking of setting up a new government,” according to the outlet.
Roth doesn’t have to wait until the loser concedes to declare the apparent winner, but if there’s any uncertainty about who won, she can withhold making a call until the results become more clear.
