Non-partisan by design
Actual Vote produces honest evidence about vote reporting regardless of who uses it. We welcome participants of all political affiliations, and our findings are published based on what the evidence shows.
Actual Vote
Independent verification of how your local votes are reported.
Actual Vote is a free smartphone app that lets Americans independently audit vote reporting in U.S. elections. You record the paper poll tapes posted at your local polling place after polls close. We compare the totals on your recordings to the officially reported results. When they match, that's independent confirmation that vote reporting was done correctly. When they don't, we investigate.
How it works
Four steps connect what voters do in the booth to what gets reported to the public.
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01
Votes are tabulated
Voting machines at each polling place tabulate the ballots cast there and print the local totals on paper poll tapes.
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02
Tapes are posted publicly
In most jurisdictions, those tapes are posted in a public location at the polling place after polls close.
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03
You record them
With the Actual Vote app, you video-record the tapes. The app captures the recording, GPS location, and timestamp.
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04
We verify
America Counts compares your recordings to the officially reported results. Findings are published publicly.
What you record
A poll tape is a long strip of paper printed by a tabulating machine after polls close. It shows the vote totals for each race and candidate at that polling place — the most local, most original record of what the machines counted.
Poll tapes can look different depending on the county and the voting equipment, but they all contain the same basic information: contests, candidates, and the number of votes each received.
Some tapes are short, some are several feet long. Some are taped to a window, others to a wall or a folding sign. The Actual Vote app handles all of these — you simply record the tape clearly enough that the totals can be read.
What we verify
America Counts compares the vote totals you recorded against the totals the elections office publishes officially. If every poll-tape total matches the corresponding official total — like the 73 votes in the comparison above — we publish positive evidence that vote reporting was done correctly.
You can view the Actual Vote video this screenshot came from at av.democracycounts.org/polltape/5105 — Nikki Porcher's section appears about 30 seconds in (feel free to browse the other Actual Vote videos too). Also check out our Actual Vote report about the 2026 Cobb County, Georgia primary runoff election, in which this recording is featured.
If a comparison doesn't match — say the poll tape transcription says “78” and the official results say “73” — we investigate. In this example, it's probably because the OCR process accidentally read “8” instead of “3”, since these digits can look similar in a screenshot of a video. A case like this would be flagged for human review, and we'd see that the poll tape clearly says “73” and the comparison is actually a match.
In our experience so far, all initial non-matches we've found turn out to have a reasonable explanation, whether it comes from our own review process or a cooperative ask to the local elections office.
With Actual Vote, therefore, the public gets information it didn't have before: an independent record of how the count was reported at the precinct level, against the centrally reported result.
Built on four principles
Free and open
The app is free. The methodology is published. Every recording is publicly archived. Every analysis can be independently verified using the same data we use.
Evidence-grade
Recordings are contemporaneous, GPS-tagged, timestamped, and chain-of-custody documented. They're built to hold up as evidence in legal proceedings if it ever comes to that.
Built on established methodology
Batch comparison auditing has been used in academic and election-administration work for over a decade. The Election Assistance Commission, Verified Voting, and the Brennan Center all endorse the underlying approach.
The app
Actual Vote runs on any iPhone or Android phone. Sign in with Google, point the camera at the poll tape, record, upload. The app handles the rest — GPS capture, metadata, chain of custody.
No password to remember. No registration form. No fee. No advertising. No data sold or shared with marketers.
Documentation
Everything about how Actual Vote works, your relationship with America Counts, and what to expect — all available to read.
Using Actual Vote
Step-by-step on planning your session, the four ways to collect tapes, recording technique, safety in the field, what happens after you submit.
Read the guide →User Agreement
The formal contract between you and America Counts when you use the app. Plain-English where possible; legally precise where it has to be.
Read the agreement →Health, Safety, and Practicality
Field safety, communicable illness, what we can and cannot guarantee about the methodology, and how to handle the most common situations you'll encounter.
Read the statement →Privacy Policy
How we collect, use, share, and retain information when you use Actual Vote, the website, or any of our services. Honest about what we do and don't do with your data.
Read the policy →Technical Documentation
The full Actual Vote Technical Manual: methodology, statistical foundations, system architecture, legal framework. For careful readers who want to verify the work.
Browse the manual →Audit reports
Published reports from past Actual Vote analyses, including the 2024 NC Primary and the 2024 General Election coverage of NC, GA, and FL.
See the reports →Actual Vote in your state
Every state handles poll tapes differently. Find out whether yours posts them on election night, when polls close, and what you can do.
Select your state →Ready to start?
Download the app, walk through the Start Here guide, and you'll be ready to record poll tapes at your local polling place on election night.