Actual Vote Portal

New to America Counts? Check out the Overview.

Actual Vote is our free app that empowers you to help double-check the accuracy of vote reporting in your area. This improves election transparency and strengthens democracy.

All you have to do is use the app to video-record poll tapes. We’ll explain everything below.

Join our non-partisan nationwide team of citizen auditors! 

Get started with Actual Vote now!

Download Actual Vote. It’s free!

Get instructions for iOS or for Android 

See how to use Actual Vote in your state for the next election

Have an hour? Make a difference!

Recording even just one poll tape with Actual Vote can have a positive impact.

The poll tape in the picture is from the 2021 Georgia runoff election. The recorder was part of a team of Actual Vote users who captured hundreds of poll tapes at dozens of polling places during this election. The recordings they gathered were compared to the officially reported results, and it was found that the reporting was done correctly. 

Don’t underestimate how powerful this is. Vote reporting in the US is vulnerable to error and fraud. By using Actual Vote here, the team provided independent evidence that the reporting was free of error or fraud. This boosts election transparency, strengthens democracy, and gives us increased peace of mind that this part of the election was free and fair.

You can harness this power for yourself. Select your state on our Actual Vote State Select page to see how.

How Actual Vote Works

It’s an app you use to video-record poll tapes. In many cases, this will be at vote centers in your area on election night.

A poll tape is a strip of paper with the day’s vote totals posted on the wall after closing time.

Your recordings are uploaded to this website for safekeeping and later analysis.

The vote data on your videos are compared against the officially reported results—they should be the same.

If they’re not the same, your recordings now constitute evidence of a discrepancy in vote reporting.

It’s important to check for such errors, as vote reporting in the US is vulnerable to error and fraud. That’s why we created Actual Vote.

In many cases, an Actual Vote analysis will verify that the vote reporting was done correctly, which helps to defend against false accusations of fraud and increases voter confidence in the system.

But if it uncovers evidence of potential errors or fraud in vote reporting, this evidence can be used in a court of law to challenge the official results.

Here’s Actual Vote in action.

We’re at a voting location with two tapes. We’ve opened Actual Vote and are ready to record.

We carefully video both tapes so that the numbers are in-focus and legible.

The recordings will appear on our website. Then, anyone can pull up a shot like this, extract the totals, and compare to the officially reported totals.

Videos about Actual Vote

Here are some older videos about Actual Vote. Updated versions coming soon!

¡Este video también está disponible en español!

Actual Vote Quick Links

In-depth Information on Actual Vote

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