Actual Vote Troubleshooting
Hi, Actual Vote users. Thanks for your commitment to election transparency and accuracy.
If you’re here, you’re probably in the unfortunate minority of users who are having an issue with Actual Vote on your device. Sorry about that!
If you prefer, simply email j.flatley@democracycounts.org and we’ll work directly together to solve your issue.
If you have videos you took with Actual Vote that didn't seem to upload:
Check the Gallery app on your phone (where you access videos you normally take). On many devices, the videos you took with Actual Vote will be there. Then follow the instructions in the next section to transfer those files to me.
If that doesn’t work, email me and let me know what device you’re on and I’ll see what I can do.
If you have poll tape videos from your phone's camera app you need to upload:
Sorry for the inconvenience! We’re taking steps to prevent this from happening in the future. Try one of the following to upload your videos to us so the data you collected can be used to help audit vote reporting!
- Try emailing your videos to j.flatley@democracycounts.org. If they’re too big, try a different technique
- Try using the Google Photos app to make an album with your videos then share the album with j.flatley@democracycounts.org and make sure to notify me
- Upload the videos to a Google Drive location of your choice, then share it with j.flatley@democracycounts.org and make sure to notify me
- Email j.flatley@democracycounts.org and I’ll send you a Google drive link to upload your videos to
If Actual Vote isn't working, try these steps:
- You can always try using Actual Vote on a different device if you happen to have access to one
- Make sure you’re using the latest version of Actual Vote. We’re pushing out fixes before election day, and the latest fix might solve your issue.
- If Actual Vote seems slow or frozen, give it a bit of time—it might be in the middle of downloading data it needs for your Home Base
- If you’re stuck on the Choose your Home Base box because the text seems too big and you can’t see the “OK” button, check your settings for a “display zoom” setting that might be set to display your text extra-big. Try turning off this setting and restarting the app. (This is “zoom” as in the size of the text, not “Zoom” as in the videoconferencing software.)
- If you get an Error 403 that says you can’t log in because “this app doesn’t comply with Google’s secure browsers policy”, your device might be old and running a version of Chrome that we can’t currently support in the app. Try updating your version of Chrome and restarting Actual Vote
- Some users get an error box that says “Video Processing Error. Object reference not set to an instance of an object.”. Unfortunately, we don’t have a fix for this. If you get this box, you may be still be able to upload your videos. If not, go on to the steps below to use the normal video camera app on your phone
Feel free to submit a bug report on our official feedback form.
If you’re still having trouble, feel free to contact j.flatley@democracycounts.org. Include a description of your problem, the make of your device, and the version of the operating system you’re using (if you know it).
If you're still having problems at go time:
If we can’t get Actual Vote to work on your device, don’t cancel your plans—you can still record poll tapes! Just follow these steps:
- Do your original Actual Vote plan, but instead of using Actual Vote to do the video-recording, just record using the ordinary video camera app on your phone
- Later, email your videos to j.flatley@democracycounts.org, where we’ll incorporate them into our usual review process, and everything about the back-end process will be the same from there on out.
- If you’re not able to email the files, contact j.flatley@democracycounts.org and he’ll give you a personalized Google Drive link to upload them to.
- If you are recording tapes for an audit committee, your committee leader will need to be able to verify that the recordings you sent were taken by you.
- So if you do email your videos in this way, be sure to use the same email address that you signed up for your committee with, and include your full name in the body of the email. Thanks!
All this is less convenient than using Actual Vote, but this way you still get to participate in collecting poll tape data, and you’ll have the same positive impact on election transparency and accuracy!