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Example: Making an Elections-Office Appointment

Record many tapes at once, in any state, on your own schedule.

No matter what state you live in, you can email your local supervisor of elections asking for an appointment — for you or a group — to visit the elections office in person and video-record poll tapes with Actual Vote.

This method has real advantages. Office personnel can often provide a large or even complete set of poll tapes all at once — far more than you could record by driving around on election night. And you can ask for tapes from absentee voting, early voting, and any other methods, not just election day. In the past, administrators in several states have given teams of Actual Vote users a conference room for a full business day and one of the three identical tape sets printed during tabulation, to record.

A note on timing

Any Actual Vote analysis completed before the election is certified, that turns up unexplained discrepancies, can be used in a court challenge to the official results if warranted. One completed after certification can’t change the outcome (though it still benefits transparency). So try to make your appointment as early as possible before the certification date, to give the analysis the best chance of finishing in time.

Of course, before certification administrators are busy with the certification procedure and may prefer to host you afterward. If that’s your only option, we’ll still analyze your videos and report our findings — a real benefit for transparency, even if it can’t affect this outcome. In all such back-and-forth, be assertive and professional, but stay respectful of administrators’ time and avoid even the perception of wasting it.

Before you write your request

Check that your county can print poll tapes. Some tabulators can’t print tapes, and some are configured not to. The easiest way to find out is to call and ask:

Hi, my name is [name]. Quick question about tabulating procedure for the upcoming election: do the tabulating machines we use in [our county] print poll tapes — the thin strips of paper showing vote totals? And will they be printed during tabulation as part of the vote-reporting procedure?

You can also look it up: Verified Voting’s Verifier is an up-to-date nationwide database of voting equipment. Look up your county’s equipment and compare against our current best knowledge of which machines can print poll tapes:

Voting machines we believe can print poll tapes
  • 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 and Software — DS450
  • Batch-Fed Optical Scanner — Election Systems and Software — DS850
  • Batch-Fed Optical Scanner — Election Systems and Software — DS950
  • Batch-Fed Optical Scanner — Election Systems and 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 and Software — DS200
  • Hand-Fed Optical Scanner — Election Systems and 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 and Software — ExpressVote Tabulator
  • Hybrid BMD/Tabulator — Election Systems and 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

Decide how many precincts and voting methods you want. The number of tapes you can record depends on your group size, the length of your appointment, and how many tapes officials can provide. Some offices easily hand over a full set; others must locate, redact (unnecessary, since everything on a tape is public), or “check out” each tape, which may cap how many they’ll provide. As a feel for scale: a county with 150 precincts across election-day, absentee, and early voting might take a team of four all day to record in full — or you could record election-day tapes from your four favorite precincts yourself in under 20 minutes. You can usually find a precinct list by googling “voting precinct list in [your county].”

Pick your preferred date and your availability window, in case they offer an alternative.

The request email

Hi, my name is [name]. My friends and I are users of the Actual Vote app, from America Counts, a non-partisan election-transparency nonprofit. With the app, volunteers video-record poll tapes, and the vote totals on them are compared to officially reported results as an independent double-check — improving transparency in vote reporting. You can see an example Actual Vote analysis for a concrete idea of how it works.

We’d like to request an appointment at your office at [address] sometime during [time window] to observe and video-record poll tapes from election-day, absentee, and early voting for all [number] precincts in [our county], for [the upcoming election]. [Preferred date] during business hours would work, for example, but we’re flexible. If there are additional conditions or rules we’d need to follow, please let us know.

Given that poll tapes contain only publicly available information, that the Actual Vote process is trustworthy and non-partisan, and that all you’d need to do is provide the tapes and a place to work, we believe this request is reasonable. Teams of Actual Vote users have made such appointments in North Carolina, Texas, and Florida before, and it’s worked out great. We hope to hear back soon about scheduling. Thanks!

If you get no response, or an initial “no,” it’s up to you how hard to push back. It’s reasonable to ask to observe and record poll tapes — but administrators are busy, so don’t push so hard as to impose unreasonably on their time.

Once it’s a “yes”

Get the app, test it out, and review Start Here — about 10–20 minutes. Then let America Counts know:

Hi, my name is [name]. Administrators in my home county of [county, state] have graciously agreed to let my team record poll tapes for [the upcoming election] with Actual Vote at their office on [date]. We requested tapes from all precincts for all voting methods, so expect many poll tape videos to come in that day!