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Actual Vote in California

Varies by county

Information current as of October 2026

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

California depends on your county. California has a strong posting law — where ballots are counted on site at a vote center, the board must post the signed results on the outside of the building for 48 hours. But most ballots are counted centrally, and only about 20 of the 58 counties tabulate at the vote center. So your move depends on which kind of county you’re in — and we’ve worked out which is which (below).

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 California 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.

Poll closing time in California: 8 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 California 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 California 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 California

See how the six ways to help compare →

  1. 1

    Record the posted tape outside — if your county counts on site

    In counties whose vote centers tabulate ballots on site (about 20 of 58, from the Secretary of State’s April 2026 equipment table; only Santa Clara is confirmed in the field so far), the board posts the signed "results of votes cast" form on the outside of the building, where it stays for at least 48 hours — you can record it at your leisure. Onsite counties include Orange, San Francisco, Santa Clara, Fresno, Placer, Solano, Stanislaus, Tulare and others. Check your county and confirm with the script below.

    Phone script — confirm whether your county posts (onsite vs. central)
    Hi, my name is [name]. I’m a user of Actual Vote, an app from America Counts, a non-partisan election transparency organization — volunteers record the results posted on election night and compare them to the official results as an independent double-check. One quick question for [county]: do your vote centers tabulate ballots on site and post the signed "results of votes cast" form on the outside of the building at close, the way Elections Code § 15250.5 describes? Or are ballots taken to a central location to be counted?

    If they’re unsure: it’s a specific legal duty — Elec. Code § 15250.5(c)(1) requires the precinct board to "post conspicuously on the outside of the polling place" a copy of the results form for at least 48 hours, but only where ballots are counted at a polling place or vote center (§ 15250). So it all comes down to: does your county count on site or downtown? If what they say differs from our county list, tell us — that’s exactly the update we want.

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

  2. 2

    Observe the central count — if your county counts downtown

    In central-count counties (about 38, including Los Angeles, Sacramento, San Diego, Riverside, Alameda, San Mateo) nothing is posted at the vote center. The count is open to public observation with no appointment, and some counties (Riverside, LA) livestream it — observe and record there.

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

  3. 3

    Record early-voting tapes

    California mostly counts vote-center ballots centrally, so most counties have no early-voting tape. Some counties, like Santa Clara, put tabulators in vote centers; each prints one tape covering every day it was used, at the close on election night. The public may observe the central count, and some counties (such as San Diego) allow video there as the registrar permits. In 2024 about 5% of ballots were cast early in person (EAC election survey). 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 right at the source — the earliest point in the chain of custody, and the clearest view of the count and the tape.

    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

    Your county registrar can often provide many precincts’ tapes or results records at once — a great way to batch-record on your own schedule, whether your county counts on site or downtown.

    Email/phone script — book an appointment at your California 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 California Public Records Act (Cal. Gov. Code § 7922.525), 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

    Request records or cast vote records

    California processing and results records are open to the public, and counties publish results during the canvass; you can also request records to cover precincts you couldn’t reach in person.

    Public-records request — California results records
    Hello, and thank you for your work. I’m requesting copies of the precinct results records (and, if available, cast vote records) from the [date] election for [precincts], electronically if possible, under the California Public Records Act (Cal. Gov. Code § 7922.525). I’m requesting them for Actual Vote, an app from America Counts, a non-partisan election transparency organization that compares results to the official totals as an independent double-check (see an example analysis). Please let me know the format, any fee, and the timeline. Thank you. — [name], [contact]

    See a detailed example of how to do this.

Past Actual Vote poll tape recordings in California

Here are some Actual Vote poll tape videos from previous elections by users in California. You can make your own in the next election!

America Counts compares the vote totals on each poll tape video to the official results to double-check the accuracy of the vote reporting. We did the comparison analysis with these and other videos from these elections and found all matches. We didn't publish a report at the time, but look for one soon.

Recordings live in the public Actual Vote Video Archive.

How we know this — and how you can check it

California’s posting duty lives in Elections Code § 15250.5: where votes are "counted by means of a voting machine at a polling place or vote center" (§ 15250), the board must "post conspicuously on the outside of the polling place" a signed copy of the results-of-votes-cast form, kept up for at least 48 hours. The catch is counting geography: most ballots — and all vote-by-mail — are counted centrally, and only some counties tabulate at the vote center.

To resolve it county by county we used the Secretary of State’s own "Voting Technologies in Use by County" inventory (April 2026), whose per-county tabulator column distinguishes a precinct scanner from "Central Tabulation Only." That sorts the 58 counties into about 20 that tabulate on site and post the exterior form (Orange, San Francisco, Santa Clara, Fresno, Placer, Solano, Stanislaus, Tulare, and others) and about 38 that count centrally (Los Angeles, Sacramento, San Diego, Riverside, Alameda, San Mateo, and more). County Election Administration Plans corroborate the central ones (e.g., LA’s ballots are "processed, scanned and tabulated" at a central facility).

Why we’re confident: § 15250.5 and the SOS equipment inventory were read directly (June 2026); Santa Clara is a confirmed posting county and LA a confirmed central county. Equipment can change, so confirm with your registrar before an election — and the posted form covers in-person ballots only. Found something different? Help us verify it.

Find your county's election website

Whether your county posts depends on whether it counts on site (≈20 counties) or downtown (≈38). The list below is every county’s elections site; use the script above to confirm which kind yours is.

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

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