Example of Making a Freedom Of Information Act Request for Poll Tapes
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Since the information on poll tapes is a matter of public record, it is reasonable to explore using the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) to make a public records request for digital or physical copies of poll tapes from an election. Once you have them, you can video-record them with the Actual Vote app, or in the case of digital files, you can also email them to America Counts.
This method is great because you can request a large batch of poll tapes by precinct and voting method, which is quite convenient compared to other ways to access tapes. You can also request tapes from counties other than your own for this method if you wish.
On the other hand, this method has three disadvantages:
- First, election officials who receive your request might consider it to be an unreasonable amount of work to collect and scan the poll tapes and email them to you
- You acquire the poll tapes at a later point in the chain of custody (since it will have been some time since the tapes were printed out). They still provide powerful evidence about the vote reporting, just not as powerful as poll tapes recorded right after their printed (like with other methods of accessing tapes). In particular, making a public records request about poll tapes is often the most practical way to do an Actual Vote analysis in states that don’t post poll tapes on election night
- This method requires perseverance, since busy election administrators might respond slowly or not at all to your request, even if the FOIA says that they should. They may not have heard about vote report auditing using poll tapes, and your request may be categorized as a low priority or even a waste of time. It might also require a great deal of back-and-forth to come to an agreement on exactly how many poll tapes are to be delivered and when
To help mitigate these disadvantages, we encourage you to be persistent, assertive, respectful, and professional when interacting with election officials, and try to avoid causing even the perception that you might be merely trying to waste their time.
This third drawback is one key reason that America Counts doesn’t simply make FOIA requests for poll tape data in all counties in all swing states—as a small organization, it would be completely infeasible for us to have open threads with election administrators from hundreds of counties all over the nation. It’s much better if many people like you open single threads with administrators from their home county.
One important consideration for this method involves timing. Any Actual Vote analysis that’s completed before the election is certified and turns up unexplained discrepancies can be used in a court challenge to the official results if warranted. One that’s completed after the election is certified can’t have any impact on the official results (though it does still benefit election transparency).
So for this method, we encourage you to try to arrange a delivery date before the election certification date, so that the analysis has the best chance of being completed before certification and we can act on any apparent discrepancies. Of course, such a tight delivery date may not be feasible even in the best of circumstances. Nevertheless, we encourage people using this technique to still try to get us the poll tape data even after the certification date. This way, we can still analyze vote reporting in your county to improve election transparency and help be better prepared for the next election.
Before you write your formal FOIA request for poll tape data, gather the following information.
First, you may wish to check if your county uses tabulating equipment that can print poll tapes. Some counties use tabulation equipment that’s not capable of printing poll tapes, and other counties use equipment that can print poll tapes but is configured not to for some reason. The easiest way to find out is to call and ask:
Hi, my name is [name]. I have a question about tabulating procedure for the upcoming election. Do the tabulating machines we use in [our county] print out poll tapes, or results tapes as they’re sometimes called? You know, the thin strips of paper that tabulating machines print out that show the vote totals from the tabulation?
Yes, ok good. Now, will those tapes be printed out during vote tabulation here in [our county] as a part of the vote reporting procedure?
Yes? Ok, great. Thanks!
You could also try to look it up for yourself. Verified Voting’s Verifier is an up-to-date nationwide database of voting equipment. Look up what tabulating equipment your county uses. Then compare it to the list below, which represents our current best knowledge of which voting machines can print poll tapes (though we may have missed some).
- Ballot Marking Device – Dominion Voting Systems – ImageCast Precinct BMD
- Ballot Marking Device – Unisyn Voting Solutions – OpenElect OVI
- Batch-Fed Optical Scanner – Clear Ballot – ClearCount
- Batch-Fed Optical Scanner – Dominion Voting Systems – ImageCast Central
- Batch-Fed Optical Scanner – Election Systems & Software – DS450
- Batch-Fed Optical Scanner – Election Systems & Software – DS850
- Batch-Fed Optical Scanner – Election Systems & Software – DS950
- Batch-Fed Optical Scanner – Election Systems & Software – Model 650
- Batch-Fed Optical Scanner – MicroVote – MicroVote/Chatsworth Scanner
- Batch-Fed Optical Scanner – Sequoia Voting Systems – NCS OpScan 5
- DRE-Dial – Hart InterCivic – eSlate
- DRE-Push Button – Sequoia Voting Systems – AVC Advantage
- DRE-Touchscreen – Premier Election Solutions (Diebold) – AccuVote TSX
- DRE-Touchscreen – Sequoia Voting Systems – AVC Edge
- Hand-Fed Optical Scanner – Clear Ballot – ClearCast
- Hand-Fed Optical Scanner – Dominion Voting Systems – ImageCast Precinct
- Hand-Fed Optical Scanner – Election Systems & Software – DS200
- Hand-Fed Optical Scanner – Election Systems & Software – Optech IIIP-Eagle
- Hand-Fed Optical Scanner – Hart InterCivic – eScan
- Hand-Fed Optical Scanner – Hart InterCivic – Verity Scan
- Hand-Fed Optical Scanner – Unisyn Voting Solutions – OpenElect FVS
- Hand-Fed Optical Scanner – Unisyn Voting Solutions – OpenElect OVO
- Hybrid BMD/Tabulator – Election Systems & Software – ExpressVote Tabulator
- Hybrid BMD/Tabulator – Election Systems & Software – ExpressVote XL
- Hybrid Optical Scan/BMD – Dominion Voting Systems – ImageCast Evolution
- Hybrid Optical Scan/DRE – Dominion Voting Systems – ImageCast Precinct ATI
- Hybrid Optical Scan/DRE – Hart InterCivic – eScan A/T
The next piece of info you’ll need for your public records request is how many precincts and voting methods you wish to request poll tapes from. You can always simply request results tapes for all precincts for all voting methods (which usually includes election day, absentee by-mail, early voting, and provisional) for the election in question and see what the response is. If that seems like it would be infeasible, you could narrow your request.
Some county elections offices will find it easy to provide you scans of all the tapes, or even a spare duplicate physical set of all of the tapes. Others may have to spend time to do a set of steps for each tape they furnish, such as finding the tape in question, redacting it (even though it’s not necessary since all the info on the tape is public), and/or recording in their system that they’ve provided the tapes to you. In cases like this, there may be some limit to how many tapes they’re willing to provide you.
You can usually find a list of precincts in your county by googling “voting precinct list in [your county]”.
To get a good sense of what voting methods will be used in your county in the next election, you can check your county’s election results site from the last election (like this one from Alexander County, NC—click on the “Results by Voting Method” tab). Often, this site will break down the results by voting method. Unless something has changed about your county’s election system, these are the voting methods that will be used in the next election, and for which you can request poll tapes.
Then you’ll need your preferred delivery window. For an Actual Vote analysis to be completed before the election certification date, this will have to be enough before the certification date to process all the poll tape data you receive.
The National Freedom of Information Coalition has helpful information about how to formulate this type of public records request for each state. Here, we’ll adapt their sample North Carolina public records request letter into one that could have been used for the 2024-03-05 North Carolina March Primary election in Alexander County. We’ll pull information from the Alexander County Board of Elections website, which is the first link when you google “Alexander County Board of Elections website“.
For this example, we’ll also imagine that we’re sending a physical letter to the Board of Elections, rather than an email.
Pat Jones
Member, Alexander County Actual Vote Team
123 Maple Street
Taylorsville, NC 28681
2024-02-21
Ray Warren
Chairman of Alexander County Board of Elections
621 Liledoun Road
Taylorsville, NC 28681
Dear Mr. Warren,
Under the North Carolina Public Records Law, G.S. §132-1., I am making a Public Records Request seeking either physical copies (to be sent to my mailing address above, or I can come to your office to pick them up) or digital scans (to be emailed to me, or for a download link to be provided to me, with the file(s) in any common format like .jpg or .pdf) of poll tapes (also called “election tapes”, “tabulator tapes”, or “results tapes”) printed from tabulating machines meeting the following criteria:
- From North Carolina’s 2024-03-05 Primary Election
- From all 15 Alexander County precincts
- For Election Day, Absentee By-Mail, and Early Voting
- The results tapes containing vote totals. I don’t need the zero tapes or any other configuration tapes, but if it’s easier to include them, that’s fine
- If, for a given combination of the above criteria, there was no voting that took place, and therefore no tabulation took place, and therefore no poll tape(s) was (were) printed, that combination is omitted from my request
This specific set of materials I am requesting is hereinafter referred to as “copies of poll tapes”.
These copies of poll tapes will be used for legitimate non-partisan vote report auditing purposes with the Actual Vote system from the non-profit non-partisan organization America Counts. We give an brief overview of how this system works in the postscript of this letter.
We believe this request is reasonable since the vote totals on the poll tapes are a matter of public record.
While we believe it’s not necessary, if you feel that you must redact anything on the poll tapes (other than the precinct name, voting method, and voting results section) to be able to provide us with the copies as requested, please go ahead. (Almost copies of poll tapes we’ve received thus far from counties around the US are not redacted).
If you deny any or all of this request, please cite each specific exemption you feel justifies the refusal to release the information and notify me of the appeal procedures available to me under the law.
Please inform me if I must pay a fee for this request. However, I would also like to request a waiver of any fees in that the analysis we plan to do on the copies of poll tapes that you provide is in the public interest, and will contribute significantly to transparency in vote reporting. This information is not being sought for commercial purposes.
The law requires that you respond to and fulfill this request “as promptly as possible.” In this case, we believe that this means within a week of election day, since we must complete our analysis before the election certification date to leave room to follow up if our analysis should uncover any apparent discrepancies in vote reporting. If you expect a significant delay in responding to and fulfilling this request, please contact me with information about when I might expect the copies of poll tapes.
I look forward to your reply. I prefer to communicate by phone or email.
Thank you for considering my request.
Sincerely,
Pat Jones
Member, Alexander County Actual Vote Team
heyitspatmjones@gmail.com
555-555-5555
Postscript: How the Actual Vote System works, and why it’s inherently nonpartisan.
You can learn all about the Actual Vote system at https://americacounts.us/get-started/. We’ll describe it in brief here.
When we receive the requested copies of poll tapes from you, we will compare the vote totals on the poll tapes with the vote totals in the officially reported results. Almost always, they’re exact match, meaning that we’ve produced independent evidence that the vote reporting was done correctly. This can be used help defend the Alexander County Board of Elections against bad-faith allegations of error or fraud in vote reporting in this election, should any be made.
Every once in a while, this technique uncovers an apparent discrepancy in the vote reporting. Often, the BOE provides an explanation that shows that we’ve simply not accounted for a certain piece of valid vote reporting logic, and the discrepancy disappears once we do. In the rare case that there seems to be no satisfactory explanation, our results are strong evidence that error or fraud may indeed have occurred in the vote reporting. Regardless of the cause, at that point, it’s critical to investigate and rectify the situation, for the sake of election accuracy.
When we publicize our conclusions—whatever they may be, and regardless of how they may align with the personal political beliefs of our team members— election transparency is increased, since we’ve contributed to the shared pool of evidence upon which voters can formulate a belief about the accuracy of the vote reporting.
Independently auditing vote reporting in this way is important, since history shows that vote reporting in the US is vulnerable to error and fraud. But we want to be clear: we’re not undertaking this poll tape-based analysis based on some presupposition that error or fraud must have occurred in Alexander County’s vote reporting for this election. To the contrary, we know that almost all election administrators in the US are honest, hard-working professionals. We are analyzing vote reporting in Alexander County (as well as many other counties across the US) in the spirit of civic engagement, teamwork, and election transparency—but also with the understanding that if unintentional error or intentional fraud somehow occurred anywhere, our efforts will increase the likelihood that it will be caught and rectified.
This kind of poll tape analysis, is inherently non-partisan and pro-democracy, since its only goal is to work for transparency and accuracy and in vote reporting regardless of how the final result aligns with the political beliefs of the individual participants.
We hope that you agree with us that this vote report auditing work is legitimate, non-partisan, and critical for election transparency, and that you will fulfill our request for copies of poll tapes.
Thanks!
Keep in mind that you can and should start this process well before the election date to avoid back-and-forth with election administrators during the hectic election certification period.
If you get no response within a reasonable timeframe, we encourage you to follow up, ideally by telephone. We find that Board of Elections staff are friendly and helpful over the telephone. If they talk to you, the person behind the request, it could help convince them that the request is genuine, will be used as claimed, and is not a waste of their time.
If the request is denied, it’s up to you how hard to push back. On the one hand, it’s reasonable to ask to be provided with poll tapes to observe and video-record, and we’ve had many counties that have happily delivered such requests in the past. On the other hand, election administrators can be busy, and it’s important to not push so hard as to cause an unreasonable imposition on their time.
If you receive physical copies of the poll tapes, you’ll need to video-record each with the Actual Vote app. So first get the app, test it out, and look over the information on our Get Started! page. All this takes about 10-20 minutes. Then video-record all of the poll tapes you got. We’ll take it from there.
Next, email America Counts to let us know you’re planning to use Actual Vote at the elections office:
Hi there, my name is [name]. Election administrators in my home county of [my county, my state] have graciously agreed to allow my team and I to video-record poll tapes for [the upcoming election] with Actual Vote at their office on [date]. We have requested to be provided with tapes from all precincts for all voting methods, so expect many poll tape videos to come in on that date!
Here’s a picture of some volunteers video-recording poll tapes with Actual Vote in Broward County, Florida in 2020:
(email us the .pdfs, scan them with actual vote, or mail us the physical tapes)
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