Actual Vote for Election Administrators

If you run elections — as a county election director, Supervisor of Elections, registrar, or in any other administrative capacity — you may have heard about America Counts and Actual Vote, or you may have been contacted by Actual Vote volunteers in your jurisdiction. This page is for you.

We want to be direct about something upfront: we are not adversaries. We know your job is hard. We know you’re underfunded, understaffed, and operating under intense public scrutiny. We know that the vast majority of election administrators are dedicated professionals who do their jobs with integrity. America Counts has always said so publicly, and we mean it.

We’re not the first to say this should be a collaborative relationship. When Actual Vote volunteers began working in Broward County, Florida, then-Supervisor of Elections Peter Antonacci responded publicly: “I welcome it. We should be watched carefully, based on reputation. We’ve earned it.” That’s the kind of openness we hope for everywhere — and the kind of professionalism we commit to in return.

Actual Vote exists because we believe election administration — like every other high-stakes public function — benefits from independent verification. Not because we assume you’re doing something wrong, but because the public deserves the confidence that comes from knowing someone checked.

What Actual Vote actually does

You may already know this, but to be precise: Actual Vote volunteers use a smartphone app to video-record poll tapes after they’re printed. America Counts then compares the vote totals on those poll tapes to the officially reported results for the corresponding precincts and races.

That’s the whole thing. We’re comparing publicly available information from one end of the reporting pipeline (poll tapes) to publicly available information from the other end (official results). We don’t access your systems, your networks, your ballots, or your internal processes. We don’t need to, and we don’t want to.

The methodology is a batch-comparison audit of vote reporting — the same tape-totals-versus-published-results check that risk-limiting audits like Colorado’s statewide program (C.R.S. § 1-7-515) perform on sampled batches, applied here at full coverage of the precincts we audit. The Election Assistance Commission, Verified Voting, and the Brennan Center all endorse rigorous post-election auditing. To be precise about what we are not: Actual Vote is not a risk-limiting audit and computes no statistical risk limit — our claims extend exactly as far as our coverage. We didn’t invent the comparison. We made it accessible to everyone.

Why this is good for you

We understand the instinct to be wary of outside groups looking over your shoulder. But consider what Actual Vote findings actually provide:

When the numbers match — which is most of the time — it’s independent confirmation that you did your job correctly. That’s something you can point to when the public, the media, or candidates question the results. It’s not your office saying “trust us” — it’s an independent third party saying “we checked, and they got it right.”

When we find initial non-matches we can’t explain ourselves, we ask your office first. Our process includes making a cooperative ask to your office before we publish anything. In our experience, most initial non-matches that we can’t resolve on our own have explanations — undocumented reporting logic around write-in votes, provisional ballot handling, or other procedural details that aren’t obvious from the outside. When your office provides that explanation, the comparison resolves to a match, and the published finding reflects that. You’re not blindsided.

It helps defend against bad-faith allegations. In the current environment, election officials face an onslaught of unfounded accusations. Having a published, independent, non-partisan audit that confirms accurate reporting is a concrete rebuttal — one that didn’t come from your office and can’t be dismissed as self-serving.

It builds public confidence. The goal of Actual Vote is not to catch you doing something wrong. It’s to create a public record of independent verification that helps the public trust the results. That’s the same goal you have.

To be frank: America Counts would like nothing more than for every single one of our analyses to come back as an exact match. That would mean vote reporting is working correctly everywhere we check — which is exactly the outcome you’re working toward every day. When our findings confirm your work, we’re amplifying the case that you’re doing your job well. That’s the outcome we expect in the vast majority of cases, and it’s good for all of us.

What we ask of election administrators

Not much. We don’t need you to do anything differently. But there are a few ways you can make the process smoother for everyone:

Post poll tapes as required by law. In states where poll tapes are required to be publicly posted after polls close, ensuring that your polling places follow through is the single most important thing. (This also means posting results tapes, not zero tapes — our volunteers can’t do anything with zero tapes.)

Be responsive to reasonable requests. Actual Vote volunteers may contact your office to schedule an appointment to view poll tapes, or to file a public records request. These are legitimate uses of public information access. A timely, professional response — even if the answer is “here’s how to submit a formal request” — goes a long way.

Help us understand your reporting process. When we find something that doesn’t match and can’t explain it ourselves, a brief explanation from your office usually resolves it. Transparency about how write-ins are handled, how provisional ballots are folded in, or how precincts are grouped for reporting purposes saves everyone time and results in more accurate published findings.

A note on how we describe comparison results. When we report an initial non-match, we mean only that a poll-tape value and an official value didn’t match on first pass — nothing more. It is not an allegation of error or fraud. The large majority resolve the moment we understand a reporting detail, and we publish that explanation right alongside the finding. In the 2022 Wake County audit, for instance, all 79 initial non-matches were explained by canvass mechanisms the county itself identified — none resulted in a discrepancy.

Our pledge to respect your time and resources

We are acutely aware that bad actors and misguided groups have made a practice of flooding election offices with unnecessary, time-consuming, and duplicative requests — whether public records requests, phone calls, or in-person demands — designed to waste your time, strain your resources, and call your reputation into question. This kind of harassment is unacceptable, and we want to be explicit: America Counts will not do this, and we ask the same of all Actual Vote users.

Our requests to your office will be infrequent, specific, professional, and grounded in legitimate public information access. We instruct our volunteers to be respectful of your time and to follow proper channels. If an Actual Vote user is behaving unreasonably toward your office, we want to know about it — please contact us and we will address it directly.

What we don’t do

• We don’t access your election systems, networks, or equipment
• We don’t handle ballots or interfere with any part of the election process
• We don’t publish speculative accusations about fraud
• We don’t pursue findings beyond what the evidence supports
• We don’t work with or for any political party, campaign, or partisan organization
• We don’t flood your office with unnecessary or duplicative requests

Concerns we hear from administrators

“This will just fuel conspiracy theories.” The opposite. Conspiracy theories thrive in the absence of evidence. Actual Vote creates evidence. When an independent, non-partisan audit confirms that your vote reporting was accurate, that’s a powerful counter to unfounded claims. Published, verifiable findings are the antidote to speculation, not the cause of it.

“My office doesn’t have time for this.” We’ve designed the process to minimize the burden on your office. Volunteers access poll tapes through public channels (posted tapes, public records requests, or scheduled appointments). Our analysis uses publicly available official results. The only time we’d contact your office is if we find something that doesn’t match and can’t resolve it ourselves — and those cooperative asks typically take a single email or phone call to answer.

“What if you find something and go straight to the media?” We don’t. Our process is to ask your office for an explanation first, and incorporate your response into our published findings. We publish factually and descriptively, without speculation about cause or motive. Our published reports are at americacounts.us — you can read our existing reports to see how we handle findings.

“Who are you accountable to?” America Counts is a project of Democracy Counts, Inc., a 501(c)(3) non-profit. Our recordings are publicly archived at av.democracycounts.org. Our analyses are published in full. Our methodology is documented. Anyone — including your office — can verify every claim we make by checking our work against the same public data. We are accountable to the same standard of transparency we advocate for.

Let’s work together

We’d rather work with you than around you. If you’d like to discuss how Actual Vote operates in your jurisdiction, have questions about our methodology, or want to establish a point of contact for when we’re active in your area, please reach out: info@democracycounts.org.

For the full technical background on our methodology, see our Technical Documentation.