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Actual Vote in Arizona

Access poll tapes after election night

Information current as of October 2026

This page explains how to use the Actual Vote app in Arizona for the next election. New to Actual Vote? Start here to learn what it is and why it matters.

Arizona seals everything and ships it: the election board's close-out report goes inside the sealed ballot box to the central counting place (A.R.S. § 16-608), and releasing tallies early is a felony (§ 16-551(C)) — so vote centers post nothing and poll workers cannot show tapes. Results appear on county websites starting about an hour after polls close, along with dropped-ballot totals and tabulation log files. You can also ask your county election office for an appointment to record the official tally sheets after election day.

Your participation is powerful: you join a nationwide team whose recordings get compared, tape-by-tape, against the officially reported results — an independent check on vote reporting, which is vulnerable to error and fraud. We haven’t published an Actual Vote analysis from Arizona yet, but see what a team achieved in the 2024 North Carolina primary. The process is legal and next-to-impossible to abuse for partisan gain: everything on a poll tape is already public.

Poll closing time in Arizona: 7 p.m. Anyone still in line at closing time is entitled to vote, so the closing procedure — and the tape — can run later.

Get the app How Actual Vote works See an example analysis

This information was compiled using AI-assisted internet research along with some calls to election offices and word-of-mouth tips. It reflects America Counts’s best knowledge of how to access poll tapes in Arizona as of October 2026, but it cannot be guaranteed 100% accurate. The best way to be sure about accessing poll tapes in your area is to call your local elections office and ask — see below for ready-to-use scripts.

If your experience or knowledge of poll-tape procedure in Arizona is different from what we show here, please contact us and let us know — we update these pages as we learn more.

Your ways to participate in Arizona

See how the six ways to help compare →

  1. 1

    Record posted tapes at polling placesNot available in Arizona

    Nothing is posted at the polling place on election night in Arizona; tapes become available afterwards (use cases 5 and 6).

  2. 2

    Be there at the close or observe the countNot available in Arizona

    The public can’t watch the close in Arizona; tapes become available after election night (use cases 5 and 6).

  3. 3

    Record early-voting tapes

    Arizona counts early ballots centrally. Counting is open to party and public observation, with a live video feed of the tabulation room (A.R.S. § 16-621), and early tallies can’t be released until an hour after polls close (§ 16-551). We don’t know whether tapes are produced or posted. Call your county elections office ahead of time and ask where and when the early-voting tapes will be printed, and whether you may observe and video-record them. If they don’t have a plan to show them, you can politely ask them to display the tapes.

    See a detailed example of recording early-voting tapes, based on Cobb County, Georgia.

  4. 4

    Become a poll worker or observer

    Working the polls or serving as an appointed observer puts you at the source and lets you see the count firsthand. In this state, though, the rules bar recording the tape in that role (see the note on this page), so it’s a way to help the count run well rather than a way to record.

    See more details about Actual Vote for poll workers or observers.

    Sign up to be a poll worker →

  5. 5

    Visit or book an appointment at your county elections office

    Election offices can often provide many precincts’ tapes at once — a great way to cover a whole county on your own schedule.

    Email/phone script — book an appointment at your Arizona county elections office
    To: [your county] County elections office
    Re: Appointment to view and record precinct results tapes

    Hello, and thank you for your work. My name is [name]. My friends and I use Actual Vote, an app from America Counts, a non-partisan election transparency organization — we video-record poll tapes and compare them to the official results as an independent double-check.

    We’d like to request an appointment to view and video-record the certified precinct results tapes (summary statements) from the [date] election — Election Day, absentee/by-mail, and early voting — for [all precincts / the following precincts: ____]. [Preferred date and window] would work, but we’re flexible and happy to follow any rules your office sets.

    Everything on these tapes is public records under the Arizona Public Records Law (Ariz. Rev. Stat. § 39-121), and already public, so all we’d need is the tapes and a place to work. Thank you for considering it. — [name], [contact]

    Offices are busiest right before certification — offering a flexible window (and to start with a few precincts) makes a yes easier. See the full worked example for more.

    See a detailed example of how to do this.

  6. 6

    File a public-records request for poll-tape images

    Poll tapes are public records under the Arizona Public Records Law. You can request digital copies by precinct and voting method — available in every state, though it captures the tapes later in the chain of custody.

    Public-records request email — Arizona central-count tabulation records
    To: [your county] County Elections Department
    Re: Public records request — [election, e.g. November 5, 2024 General Election] tabulation records, [your county] County

    Dear [County] County Elections,

    Under the Arizona Public Records Law, Ariz. Rev. Stat. § 39-121, I'm requesting copies of public election data — specifically the vote center close-out reports and central tabulation tally sheets showing candidate-by-candidate vote totals, meeting the following criteria:

    • From Arizona's [election, e.g. November 5, 2024 General Election]
    • From all vote centers in [your county] County — I understand Arizona tabulates centrally rather than printing public tapes at the vote center, so I'm requesting whatever official tally record the central counting place produces for each vote center or batch
    • For each voting method reflected in those records — Election Day, Early/Mail Ballot, and any in-person early voting
    • Totals by candidate for each contest — I don't need internal configuration or diagnostic logs, though including them is fine
    • If for any combination above no ballots were cast, simply omit it

    Digital scans (emailed or via a download link, in any common format such as .pdf or .jpg) would be ideal; physical copies for pickup or mail are also fine, and I understand your office may also offer an in-person appointment to review or record the official tally sheets — that works too. These are public records, and the totals they show are already in the official published results. They'll be used for legitimate, non-partisan vote-reporting auditing with Actual Vote, an app from America Counts, a non-partisan election transparency organization — you can see exactly how it works, and why it's non-partisan, at Start Here.

    If you must redact anything beyond vote center/batch identifier, voting method, and results totals, please go ahead. If you deny any part of this request, please cite the specific exemption and let me know the appeal options under the law. Please also tell me of any fee in advance — I request a fee waiver, as this analysis is in the public interest, contributes to election transparency, and is not for any commercial purpose.

    Because our analysis is most useful before results are certified, I'd be grateful for the data within about a week if possible; if you expect a delay, just let me know when to expect it.

    Thank you for considering this request. — [name], [email/phone]

    See a detailed example of how to do this.

Live near a state line? Consider crossing it.

Arizona makes election-night recording hard — but a neighbor posts a results tape right on the outside of the polling place: New Mexico. If you live near the border, a short drive across it can be the highest-value Actual Vote move of the night. Honest caveat: a tape you record there verifies that state’s precinct, not your own — it complements your in-state options, it doesn’t replace them.

See a detailed example of how to make a plan to visit polling places on election night based in Broward County, Florida.

Heads up: Arizona restricts on-site recording of the tape. Don’t record where it isn’t allowed — rely on official results and the post-election records route instead.

Example Actual Vote Recordings

We don’t have any recordings from Arizona yet — you could be the first! Here are some example poll tape videos by Actual Vote users in other states, all taken during scheduled visits to an elections office. America Counts compares the vote totals on each poll tape video to the official results to double-check the accuracy of the vote reporting. See this report from North Carolina in 2022 for an example.

Recordings live in the public Actual Vote Video Archive.

How we know this — and how you can check it

This reflects America Counts’s primary-source review of Arizona’s election statutes and Secretary of State guidance, most recently updated in October 2026; the summary at the top of this page and the early-voting card link the provisions it relies on. Procedures can still vary locally, so the surest way to confirm what applies at your polling place or elections office is to call them directly. Found something different? Tell us and we’ll verify it and fix the page.

Find your county's election website

County sites carry polling locations and local contact information. Search "[your county], Arizona elections" if a link 404s.

Ready to help?

Join the nationwide team independently double-checking how votes are reported — starting in Arizona.

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