In many African countries releasing election results means simply revealing the winners and losers and publicising their percentage of the national vote. This norm makes it very difficult for researchers interested in studying African elections to collect detailed election data and for citizens to evaluate the validity of the results. This article describes the difficulties associated with collecting sub-national election results in a select set of West African countries, explores some of the potential reasons for these difficulties, argues for an alteration in the status quo and pushes election observers and scholars to demand more of African electoral commissions.