Vote Reporting Audits

2022 Wake County Midterm Actual Vote Analysis One complete unit of Actual Vote analysis work: one election in one state, with all the submissions, transcriptions, comparisons, investigations, and findings that produce one published report.

November 8, 2022 election · Wake County, NC · tapes recorded March 2023 (after certification) · first published 2026

av-report-20221108-nc-midterm-wake-v1.0

Comparisons
1,424
Votes audited
483,415

Executive Summary

America Counts, with Transparent Elections NC, used Actual Vote — its system for independently double-checking that vote totals are reported accurately — to check Wake County, North Carolina, the state’s largest, for the November 8, 2022 Midterm Election. Volunteers from the North Carolina Election Integrity Team recorded the poll tapes for all 208 election-day precincts at the county elections office, and we compared the usable set against North Carolina’s official precinct results. Across 1,424 comparisons covering 483,415 votes, zero apparent discrepancies remained: every one of the 189 first-pass mismatches was accounted for, including 79 small differences in three precincts that the county’s own canvass mechanisms explain — a cooperative inquiry the Wake elections office answered within a day.

This kind of check matters most where margins are thin, and North Carolina’s can be extraordinarily thin: the 2020 Supreme Court Chief Justice race was settled by roughly 400 votes statewide, with three official tallies producing three different margins. When results are that close, independent confirmation that the published numbers match what the machines printed is exactly the check that catches an error while it can still be fixed. The Why this analysis matters below develops the point.

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1. Scope

Analysis ID20221108_usa_nc_wake
StateNorth Carolina, United States
ElectionNovember 8, 2022 Midterm Election
Analysis WindowAfter the election certification date of November 29, 2022 (tapes recorded March 15, 2023)
Counties RepresentedWake County
Poll Tape Access Method(s)Appointment at the Wake County Board of Elections office: a six-volunteer NCEIT team, working with Transparent Elections NC, recorded all 208 election-day precinct tapes, and tapes from 13 of the county’s 15 one-stop sites, under WCBE supervision on March 15, 2023. App upload issues (since fixed) reduced the usable set to 130 election-day precincts and 5 one-stop sites.
Official Results Source2022 Nov 8 Election – Results from NCSBE Historical Election Results page · downloaded December 1, 2022
Analysis StatusClosed (comparison and investigation completed July 2024; first published 2026)
Recording Team6 volunteers from the North Carolina Election Integrity Team (NCEIT), working with Transparent Elections NC
Map of North Carolina with Wake County shaded green.
Wake County, the single county covered in this analysis.

2. Results in Brief

MetricValue
Submissions Received168
Transcribable Submissions151 (130 election day precincts + 21 one-stop tapes across 5 sites)
Comparison-Eligible Transcribed Values1,532
Possible Comparisons1,424
Transcribed Values For Which No Comparison Is Possible*108 (7.0%)
Exact Matches1,318
Matchesplausibly equivalent write-in situations27
Matches (Plausible Explanation)79 (in 3 precincts; all accounted for by county-identified canvass mechanisms — 29 documented by the county’s own canvass minutes; non-contest-flipping, benign magnitude)
Apparent Discrepancies0
Votes Audited483,415
Average Votes per Transcribed Value315.5
Average Votes per Transcribable Submission3,201.4
Votes Audited as Share of Wake County Reported Votes4.55%
Votes Audited as Share of Statewide Reported Votes0.6%
Election Day Precincts Covered130 of 208 (62.5%)
One-Stop Sites Covered5 of 15 (2 with complete machine coverage)

* These transcribed values come from partially recorded multi-machine one-stop (early-voting) sites, whose official totals aggregate all of a site’s machines — with any machine’s tape missing, no comparison is possible (see Section 6). Coincidental matches at such sites are also excluded rather than counted as confirmations.

3. Summary of Findings

America Counts, in partnership with Transparent Elections NC, audited vote reporting in Wake County, North Carolina for the November 8, 2022 Midterm Election. A team of six volunteers from the North Carolina Election Integrity Team video-recorded (and in some cases photographed as still images) the poll tapes at the Wake County Board of Elections office in March 2023, capturing tapes from all 208 of Wake County’s election day precincts and 13 of the county’s 15 one-stop (early voting) sites. App upload issues — since fixed — reduced the usable set to 130 election day precincts and 21 one-stop tapes across 5 sites.

From 151 transcribable submissions we transcribed 1,532 vote totals, of which 1,424 could be compared to officially reported results, covering 483,415 votes. On first pass, 189 values did not match. Investigation — documented in full in Section 7, and step by step in the companion investigation walkthrough — accounted for every one of them: 27 are plausibly equivalent write-in situations in which the tape and the official results represent the same write-in votes two different ways, verified arithmetically and classified as matches; 83 are values from partially recorded multi-machine early-voting sites where no comparison is possible; and the remaining 79, concentrated in three precincts, are accounted for by canvass mechanisms the Wake County Board of Elections itself identified when we asked — manual write-in additions, retrieval of an accidentally scanned provisional ballot, and a tabulator-jam re-scan — mechanisms the county’s own canvass minutes independently document for two of the three precincts. No apparent discrepancy arose — every difference was explained — and none was large enough to have affected the outcome of any contest. Because each of the 79 has a plausible, non-contest-flipping, benign-magnitude explanation, we resolve them to matches (plausible explanation) — the county explanation is credible, and for 29 of them (precinct 19-14) documented in the board minutes, though we did not confirm every value’s arithmetic against the underlying canvass records. They are matches, not discrepancies; each is itemized below and remains open to closer examination at any time.

This analysis was completed after the election certification date of November 29, 2022. Its findings cannot be used to change the certified results, but they provide independent evidence about the accuracy of vote reporting in Wake County and serve as a blueprint for pre-certification analysis in future elections — including this analysis’s distinguishing contribution: a complete, documented investigation funnel from first-pass mismatch to explanation, including a cooperative same-week response from the elections office.

4. Why This Analysis Matters

The stakes for accurate vote reporting in North Carolina are high, and Wake County — the state’s largest — is central to them. In the 2020 General Election, the presidential margin in North Carolina was 74,483 votes out of 5.5 million cast (1.35%).

Closer still was the 2020 North Carolina Supreme Court Chief Justice race. Initial results showed Paul Newby leading Cheri Beasley by 406 votes statewide — 0.008%. A statewide machine recount narrowed the margin to 401. A partial hand-to-eye recount showed the lead growing, and Beasley conceded, with the final official margin at 412. Three official tallies of the same race produced three different margins spanning 11 votes, and no specific accounting of where those 11 votes came from was ever published.

Margins this small should make everyone nervous. A single undetected vote reporting issue anywhere in the state — one transposed number, one double-uploaded memory card — could have exceeded the entire margin. Random one-off human error can plausibly produce discrepancies of this order in a system with 100 counties and thousands of polling places; so, in principle, could deliberate manipulation designed to look like error. The only way to know is to check, independently, while correction is still possible.

It is in this context that America Counts and Transparent Elections NC undertake independent audits of vote reporting with Actual Vote. This analysis — recording every Wake County tape, comparing nearly half a million votes, running every mismatch to ground, and getting the county’s own explanation on the record — is what that checking looks like in practice.

5. What Is an Actual Vote Analysis?

An Actual Vote analysis is an independent comparison of vote totals transcribed from poll tapes to the corresponding officially reported results, serving as a double-check of the accuracy of vote reporting.

Vote reporting is the process by which local-level vote totals from tabulating machines are aggregated to produce the official countywide and statewide results. This process is distinct from vote counting (which covers everything from voter registration through ballot tabulation). An Actual Vote analysis audits only the reporting step — not the casting, counting, or tabulation of ballots.

The methodology is an independent batch-comparison audit of the vote-reporting chain — the same tape-totals-versus-published-results check that risk-limiting audits perform on randomly sampled batches, conducted here at full coverage of the audited precincts. Batch comparison is a peer-reviewed technique that has been in use for over a decade: Colorado has run statewide risk-limiting audits built on it since 2017 (C.R.S. § 1-7-515), and the Election Assistance Commission, Verified Voting, and the Brennan Center for Justice all endorse rigorous post-election auditing. Actual Vote is not a risk-limiting audit — it does not compute or claim a statistical risk limit, and its claims extend exactly as far as its coverage.

For more information, see How Actual Vote Works and Why Actual Vote Is Trustworthy on our website. For the full technical methodology, see Section 8 of the Technical Manual.

6. Methodology Notes for This Analysis

How vote reporting works in North Carolina

Vote reporting in North Carolina happens at the precinct level for election day voting (for poll-tape access in NC generally, see Actual Vote in North Carolina): official results are reported per combination of County, Precinct, Voting Method, Contest, and Choice. Each election day precinct in Wake County ran exactly one DS200 tabulator in this election, so one poll tape maps directly to one set of official precinct rows — the ideal structure for comparison.

One-stop (early) voting is reported differently, and correctly describing it matters for this analysis. Official one-stop results appear as site-and-ballot-range pseudo-precincts — identifiers like OSCH 1-40, meaning the one-stop site (here, Chavis Heights) and a ballot-style range — and each pseudo-precinct’s totals aggregate all of the site’s tabulators. Poll tapes are printed per machine. A comparison therefore requires every machine’s tape from a site: at a two-machine site where one machine’s tapes were recorded, the tape values are systematically short of the official totals, and no comparison is possible. We confirmed each site’s machine count from the DS200 certification list the Wake County Board of Elections provided (see Section 7).

Wake County used ES&S ExpressVote ballot marking devices and ES&S DS200 hand-fed optical scanners for both early voting and election day voting. The DS200 prints poll tapes: long strips of paper recording a comprehensive account of the tabulation process and its results. For detailed technical information about North Carolina’s vote reporting structure, see Section 18 of the Technical Manual.

Data collection

In early 2023, an Audit Committee of six Wake County Actual Vote users from the North Carolina Election Integrity Team (NCEIT), working with Transparent Elections NC, set out to audit Wake County’s vote reporting in the 2022 Midterm Election — to work for transparency in Wake County vote reporting and to set the stage for Actual Vote efforts in future Wake County elections.

On March 15, 2023, by appointment, the team was admitted to a conference room at the Wake County Board of Elections (WCBE) office. As agreed, WCBE furnished all Wake County poll tapes from the 2022 Midterm Election, allowing the team to view and record them under the supervision of a WCBE staff member. Working from 9:00am to 4:30pm with careful records of which precincts had been recorded, the team video-recorded poll tapes from all 208 election day precincts and 13 of the county’s 15 one-stop voting sites.

Some team members then experienced an unforeseen issue with the Actual Vote app, and their videos did not upload properly for reasons outside their control. In some cases workarounds recovered the videos; in others they could not be recovered. Final usable count: 151 transcribable submissions — 130 election day precincts and 21 one-stop tapes across 5 of the 13 sites (2 sites with complete machine coverage, 3 partial). America Counts has since fixed the app error.

All poll tape recordings used in this analysis are publicly available at av.democracycounts.org (see Section 11).

Transcription and comparison

Poll tape vote totals were transcribed by hand from the video recordings into structured spreadsheets. In the first pass, the team recorded metadata and vote totals for the national races (US Senate, and US House District 2 or 13 depending on precinct location), plus each tape’s signature count. For any precinct where the national races showed an initial non-match, the team made a second transcription pass capturing all down-ballot races — standard procedure to check whether the differences extend beyond the national races.

The comparison was conducted in Python. For each combination of precinct, voting method, contest, and choice, the transcribed value was compared directly to the officially reported total; any mismatch was flagged as an initial non-match for investigation. Mismatches in write-in-bearing contests were additionally tested with the write-in equivalence check (Section 7).

Definitions

A submission is the set of all videos and/or images submitted through the Actual Vote app or sent directly to America Counts that contribute to depicting one specific thing (most often a single results tape).

A transcribable submission is a submission that depicts a results tape with clearly readable header information (state, county, election, precinct, voting method) and at least one legible contest/choice/vote total for comparison to official results.

A comparison is a transcribed value that can be matched one-to-one against an officially reported value at the same grain. Values from partially recorded multi-machine one-stop sites are not comparisons (Section 6.1) and are reported separately throughout.

For the full set of formal definitions used across all Actual Vote analyses, see the Technical Manual glossary.

7. Discussion of Results

The investigation funnel: 189 first-pass mismatches, fully accounted

Of 1,532 transcribed values, 189 did not match the officially reported value on first pass. This analysis’s distinguishing feature is that every one of those 189 has a documented disposition — the complete funnel is tabulated in Section 10, and the full investigation, including the letters to the elections office, their replies, and the county’s canvass minutes, is walked through in the companion investigation page:

  • 27 are plausibly equivalent write-in situations (matches). The poll tape prints one catch-all raw write-in count; during canvass those write-ins are resolved — credited to a listed candidate the voter wrote in, credited to a qualified write-in candidate listed separately in the official results, or discarded as invalid. The same votes are simply represented two different ways. We tested every affected contest with the five-condition write-in equivalence check; in 19 contests the arithmetic closes exactly, and the 27 mismatched values in those contests are classified as matches. The per-contest reconciliations are published in Section 10. One example: at one-stop site OSHT, the tape shows 10 US Senate write-ins against an official 8 — but the official results separately credit 2 votes to qualified write-in candidate Michelle Estelle Lewis: 8 + 2 = 10, with all four named candidates (12,694 votes) matching exactly.

  • 83 are values with no comparison. These are tape values from the partially recorded two-machine one-stop sites (OSCH, OSJB, OSOP). Official pseudo-precinct totals aggregate both machines; we recorded one machine’s tapes, so the tape values are structurally short. The WCBE-provided DS200 certification list confirms each site’s machine count, which converts these from “unexplained shortfalls” into a documented structural exclusion. They are not discrepancies. (A further 25 values at these sites coincidentally matched the official totals — small write-in and zero rows; we exclude them from comparisons on the same structural grounds rather than counting them as confirmations.)

  • 79 resolved to matches (plausible explanation), all accounted for by county-identified mechanisms. They are concentrated in three election day precincts, each with a distinct signature, discussed next.

The three precincts, WCBE’s response, and the canvass minutes

Precinct 17-04 (22 values): the official total is one vote higher than the tape for listed candidates across 22 contest/choice combinations. Precinct 19-12 (28 values): the official total is one vote lower than the tape across 27 combinations, plus one write-in difference. Precinct 19-14 (29 values): a mixed pattern, mostly official-one-lower, including a two-vote difference in the Sheriff contest.

In July 2024, America Counts wrote to the Wake County Board of Elections with five specific questions covering these patterns and the one-stop machine counts. WCBE replied the next morning. Their response identified the canvass mechanisms that produce exactly these signatures: write-in votes for listed candidates are manually added to those candidates’ totals during canvass (producing official +1s); an accidentally scanned provisional ballot, once retrieved, is subtracted (producing official −1s); and tabulator jams and possible re-scans account for related adjustments. WCBE referred us to the board minutes of November 17–18, 2022 for per-precinct detail, and attached the DS200 certification list that resolved the one-stop question.

The county’s canvass minutes bear the response out — unevenly, and worth stating precisely. The 11/17/2022 minutes name precinct 19-14 directly: the director reported “an issue at precinct 19-14 involving a tabulator jam and duplicate ballot scans,” the Board voted to rescan it, and 19-14 appears in the approved precinct reconciliations — removing duplicate-scanned ballots lowers the official total below the election-night tape, exactly the 19-14 pattern (including the Sheriff −2, two duplicated ballots that both marked one candidate). 17-04 is also named in that approved reconciliations list, though the minutes do not spell out its mechanism. 19-12 is not named, but the minutes do record the very mechanism cited for it — a provisional ballot “placed in the tabulator on Election Day” being denied and its vote redacted. A mechanism-fit check confirms 77 of the 79 differences fall within what the cited mechanism can produce; the two that do not are write-in-line reallocations, handled as write-in representation rather than ballot-count changes.

We therefore resolve these 79 to matches with a plausible explanation: the county’s account is credible and, for the 29 in 19-14, documented in its own minutes, though confirming each value’s arithmetic against the underlying canvass records was neither necessary nor proportionate. Every difference is non-contest-flipping and — almost all of one or two votes — of a magnitude the analyst judged benign; none was remotely close to affecting any contest’s outcome. They are matches, not discrepancies, and each remains itemized and open to closer examination at any time — all 79 are published row by row in a dedicated exhibit (The 79, in full). The full correspondence and minutes are reproduced in the companion investigation page.

We note what this exchange demonstrates: a specific, politely batched, evidence-backed inquiry to an elections office produced a complete, cooperative answer within twenty-four hours. That is the cooperative-inquiry approach working as designed — for both parties.

What the comparison does and does not establish

This analysis provides evidence that the 483,415 votes it compared were reported consistently with the poll tapes, subject to the explanations above. The audit-power analysis in Section 10 makes the limits explicit: at roughly 4.6% coverage of Wake County’s reported contest-level votes, no contest was fully verified, and for every audited contest the unaudited votes exceed the margin of victory. The value of this analysis lies in the demonstrated funnel — recording, transcription, comparison, investigation, the SOE ask, and explanation — rather than in outcome confirmation.

Chain of custody and timing considerations

The poll tapes were recorded at the WCBE office in March 2023, months after the November 2022 election, not on election night. The tapes were in WCBE custody the entire time. This means the chain of custody is weaker than for a pre-certification, election-night analysis: a pre-certification analysis with election-night recordings provides stronger evidence about potential discrepancies before they are certified. That stronger design is exactly what this analysis’s funnel was built to enable in future elections.

Limitations of this analysis

This analysis covers only the precincts and voting methods for which we obtained transcribable submissions. Specifically: we compared values from 130 of Wake County’s 208 election day precincts (62.5%); of the county’s 15 one-stop sites, only the 2 recorded with complete machine coverage produced comparisons; absentee and provisional voting — a significant share of votes cast — are not covered at all; down-ballot contests were transcribed only in precincts where the national races showed a mismatch; and the analysis was completed after certification, so its findings could not have fed correction of the certified results.

8. Thanks and Acknowledgments

America Counts thanks the six volunteers from the North Carolina Election Integrity Team who contributed to this Actual Vote analysis. Our volunteers showed professionalism and perseverance in recording 221 poll tapes in a single supervised session, and in developing workarounds when an unforeseen technical issue with the Actual Vote app (since fixed) prevented some videos from uploading.

We extend our thanks to Transparent Elections NC for their partnership in undertaking this analysis and for their commitment to election integrity in North Carolina.

Finally, we are grateful to the Wake County Board of Elections — first for their cooperation in making all poll tapes available for supervised recording, and second for their responsiveness during the investigation: our five-question inquiry about these discrepancies received a complete, substantive reply the following morning, including the equipment documentation that resolved the one-stop question. Their willingness to engage demonstrates a genuine commitment to election transparency.

Non-partisan statement

This report is the joint work of America Counts and Transparent Elections NC, both non-partisan 501(c)(3) nonprofit organizations. Working to improve election transparency and accuracy — including by issuing reports like this one — is inherently non-partisan. This report has no stated or implied partisan intent of any kind. For more on how and why America Counts maintains its non-partisan commitment, see Non-Partisan Election Advocacy on our website.

America Counts is a project of Democracy Counts, Inc. Our website is americacounts.us and our contact email is info@democracycounts.org.

Transparent Elections NC is a non-partisan 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization dedicated to election integrity and transparency in North Carolina. Their website is transparentelectionsNC.org and their contact email is info@transparentelectionsNC.org.

Data sources

This report is based entirely on data that is either freely available to the public or available for free upon request. Poll tape data was obtained via video recordings taken with the Actual Vote app or with users’ device cameras, under WCBE supervision. Official results were downloaded from the North Carolina State Board of Elections. All poll tape recordings used in this analysis are publicly available at av.democracycounts.org.

Conclusions and opinions

All analysis and conclusions in this report are the sole work and viewpoint of America Counts and Transparent Elections NC. They are not necessarily the opinion of any other person or organization, including the Wake County Board of Elections or the North Carolina State Board of Elections (NCSBE).

Accuracy of contextual information

Some information in this report about how vote reporting works in North Carolina and its constituent counties reflects educated guesses and inferences by America Counts based on publicly available resources, poll tape data, correspondence with election administrators, and our existing knowledge of election systems. Not all such information has been directly confirmed by the relevant election authorities. If you wish to use this information, proceed with appropriate caution and verify directly with the relevant boards of elections where possible.

Using this report

This report was completed after the election certification date of November 29, 2022. Its findings cannot be used to change the certified results. However, it provides independent evidence about the accuracy of vote reporting in Wake County and can inform planning for future Actual Vote projects. While the data and analysis contained herein may be suitable for other purposes, no such suitability is expressed or implied by America Counts or Transparent Elections NC.

Note for election administrators

America Counts engages in vote report auditing in the spirit of teamwork, advocacy for election transparency, and civic engagement. We are deeply grateful to the many honest and professional election administrators across the United States — the Wake County Board of Elections’ cooperation with this analysis being a documented example. By undertaking this analysis, we are not representing any presumption that their work is inherently suspect or that error or fraud must have occurred. Independent audits of high-stakes systems are critical regardless of how well the people in those systems are performing.

Images

The header photo is a beach on the North Carolina coast by Zach Wear on Unsplash, used under the Unsplash License. All other images in this report are public domain, licensed by America Counts, or produced by America Counts.

Licensing

This report is released under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International license (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0). You may remix, adapt, and build upon this work non-commercially, provided you acknowledge America Counts and Transparent Elections NC and do not imply endorsement.

10. Detailed Results

Maps

Map of Wake County, NC, with the election day precincts covered by transcribable submissions shaded green.
Wake County — election day precincts with at least one transcribable submission (128 of 206 precinct polygons; two covered sub-precincts share their parent precinct’s polygon). One-stop pseudo-precincts aggregate machines at a site and have no polygon geometry.

The investigation funnel

Every one of the 189 first-pass mismatches has a documented disposition:

DispositionValuesWhereExplanation
Match (plausibly equivalent write-in situation)2701-39, 01-41, 10-02, 16-07, 17-04 (mayor only), 17-12, 19-17 (election day); OSHT 1-40 (one stop)Plausibly equivalent write-in situations: the tape’s raw catch-all write-in count and the official results’ canvass-resolved write-in lines (listed-candidate credits, qualified write-in candidates, discarded invalid names) are arithmetically equivalent accounts of the same votes. The write-in equivalence check passed for every contest; classified as matches, not discrepancies. 6 of the 27 rows lack the tape’s own Total Votes line (condition 5 unverifiable) and are noted as such.
Match (plausible explanation) — county-identified mechanism2217-04 (election day)Official totals one higher than the tape for a listed candidate in each contest: consistent with write-in votes for listed candidates being manually added to their totals during canvass, the mechanism WCBE identified in its 2024-07-30 reply. 17-04 is named in the county’s approved precinct reconciliations (11/17/2022 minutes). Non-contest-flipping; all +1. Resolved to matches with a plausible explanation; each value’s arithmetic against the underlying canvass records was not separately confirmed.
Match (plausible explanation) — county-identified mechanism2819-12 (election day)Official totals one lower than the tape across 27 contest/choice pairs (plus one write-in-line difference handled as write-in representation): consistent with an accidentally scanned provisional ballot being retrieved and subtracted during canvass — a mechanism WCBE identified, and one the 11/17/2022 minutes document occurring in this canvass (a provisional “placed in the tabulator on Election Day,” denied, its vote redacted), though the minutes do not name 19-12. Non-contest-flipping. Resolved to matches with a plausible explanation.
Match (plausible explanation) — county-identified mechanism2919-14 (election day)Mixed pattern (mostly official one lower than tape, plus the Sheriff Rowe −2 and one write-in-line difference handled as write-in representation): the 11/17/2022 minutes name 19-14 directly — a tabulator jam and duplicate ballot scans, a Board vote to rescan, and approval of its reconciliation — so removing duplicate scans lowers the official total below the election-night tape exactly as observed. Non-contest-flipping. Resolved to matches with a plausible explanation, 29 of them documented in the county’s minutes.
No comparison83OSCH, OSJB, OSOP site-range groups (one stop)Not discrepancies: official one-stop results are reported per site-and-ballot-range pseudo-precinct aggregating ALL of a site’s machines, while our recordings cover one machine’s tapes at these two-machine sites (per the WCBE DS200 certification list). A comparison requires every machine’s tape, so all partial-site rows (including 25 that coincidentally matched) are excluded from comparisons as structurally incomplete.
Total first-pass mismatches189

Write-in equivalence check: per-contest reconciliations

The 19 contests below pass the five-condition write-in equivalence check: the tape’s raw write-in count equals the write-ins redistributed to listed candidates plus the official write-in lines plus any invalid write-ins dropped, and the totals reconcile exactly. “Tape checksum” verifies the tape’s internal consistency where its own Total Votes line was transcribed. The same check was run against every other mismatch in the analysis and correctly fails for all of them (75 contests) — it is narrow by design.

PrecinctContestTape Write-ins (raw)Redistributed to Listed CandidatesOfficial Write-in LinesInvalid (dropped)Tape Checksum
01-39RALEIGH COUNCIL AT LG7160pass
01-39RALEIGH MAYOR260260pass
01-39SOIL WATER DIST SUPERVISOR2020pass
01-39US SENATE1010pass
01-41US SENATE1010not transcribed
10-02COUNTY BOARD OF EDUCATION DIST 19180not transcribed
10-02SOIL WATER DIST SUPERVISOR12480pass
10-02US SENATE2110pass
16-07SOIL WATER DIST SUPERVISOR130130pass
16-07US SENATE1010pass
17-04RALEIGH MAYOR5050pass
17-12COUNTY BOARD OF EDUCATION DIST 4121110not transcribed
17-12SOIL WATER DIST SUPERVISOR180180pass
17-12US SENATE2020pass
19-17RALEIGH COUNCIL AT LG7070pass
19-17RALEIGH MAYOR450450pass
19-17SOIL WATER DIST SUPERVISOR142120pass
19-17US SENATE2020pass
OSHT 1-40US SENATE100100not transcribed

Submissions overview

Total Submissions Received168
Total Transcribable Submissions151
Difference17

Submissions by voting method

Voting MethodTotal Submissions ReceivedTranscribable SubmissionsDifference
Election Day1331303
Not Applicable909
One Stop25214
Rejected101

Submissions by category

Submission CategoryTotal Submissions ReceivedTranscribable SubmissionsDifference
Documenting Procedure202
Practice Recording707
Results Tape1581517
Zero Tape101

Transcribed values by voting method

Voting MethodCount
Election Day1,352
One Stop180

Transcribed values by contest party

Party AffiliationCount
Other/Unknown1,532

Votes by contest party

Party AffiliationCount
Other/Unknown529,136

Transcribed values by precinct

The full per-precinct breakdown — one row per precinct, 1,532 transcribed values across 150 precincts — is published as a separate exhibit to keep this report readable: Transcribed values by precinct →.

Vote coverage

Votes audited as a share of ALL officially reported contest-level votes — every vote for every contest, every precinct, every voting method. Values at partially recorded multi-machine one-stop sites are excluded from “votes audited.”

JurisdictionVotes AuditedOfficial VotesShare Audited
Wake County483,41510,617,4084.55%
Statewide483,41581,050,3070.6%

Audit power: unaudited votes relative to margins of victory

For an error in vote reporting to have changed a contest’s outcome, it must be large enough to overcome the margin of victory — and it must live somewhere in the votes this audit did not verify. The decisive comparison is therefore between each contest’s unaudited votes and its margin. In this analysis, none of the 39 audited contests was fully verified or overstatement-protected — at roughly 4.6% county coverage, unaudited votes exceed every margin. The table shows the ten contests where the audit came closest (smallest unaudited-to-margin ratio). The closely watched US Senate race (statewide margin 121,737) had 147,890 of its 3,773,924 votes audited.

ContestJurisdictionMargin of VictoryVotes AuditedVotes Unaudited
TOWN OF WAKE FOREST PARKING FACILITIES BONDSWake2,1921,68717,345
TOWN OF WAKE FOREST ROADWAY AND TRANSPORTATION BONDSWake10,0981,69517,431
TOWN OF WAKE FOREST GREENWAY IMPROVEMENT BONDSWake6,7931,68817,443
TOWN OF WAKE FOREST PARKS AND RECREATION BONDSWake7,8111,69517,470
CITY OF RALEIGH CITY COUNCIL DISTRICT BWake2,8642,11224,317
NC HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES DISTRICT 066Statewide11,3861,54024,991
NC HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES DISTRICT 039Statewide6,2723,03327,785
NC HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES DISTRICT 033Statewide7,2801,09531,575
WAKE COUNTY BOARD OF EDUCATION DISTRICT 04Wake14,01673632,538
CITY OF RALEIGH CITY COUNCIL DISTRICT AWake2,57044433,157

Transcription quality checks

Results tapes print their own per-contest “Total Votes” (equal to the choice values plus overvotes and undervotes). Where transcribed, that line audits our transcription itself: of 516 contest blocks with a transcribed tape total, 510 reproduce it exactly from the transcribed values (6 flag transcription gaps such as an illegible line — published in the analysis archive; none change the comparison findings).

Poll tape signature blocks were transcribed for 150 tapes: 131 met the required signature count and 19 showed fewer valid signatures than required. Signature counts are procedural metadata; they do not affect vote totals.

Every transcribable submission used in this analysis is listed below — one row per poll tape. Click a thumbnail or submission ID to open the original video in the public Actual Vote Video Archive. All tapes were recorded at the Wake County Board of Elections office on March 15, 2023 under WCBE supervision.

Transcribable SubmissionPreviewCountyPrecinctVoting Method
▶ 3945WakeOne Stop
▶ 3954Wake01-01Election Day
▶ 3956Wake01-02Election Day
▶ 3960Wake01-03Election Day
▶ 3962Wake01-04Election Day
▶ 3997Wake01-05Election Day
▶ 3970Wake01-06Election Day
▶ 3972Wake01-07Election Day
▶ 3974Wake01-07AElection Day
▶ 3976Wake01-09Election Day
▶ 3979Wake01-10Election Day
▶ 3981Wake01-11Election Day
▶ 3982Wake01-12Election Day
▶ 3985Wake01-13Election Day
▶ 3987Wake01-14Election Day
▶ 3989Wake01-15Election Day
▶ 3992Wake01-16Election Day
▶ 3994Wake01-17Election Day
▶ 4004Wake01-18Election Day
▶ 4007Wake01-19Election Day
▶ 4011Wake01-20Election Day
▶ 4014Wake01-21Election Day
▶ 4017Wake01-22Election Day
▶ 4018Wake01-23Election Day
▶ 4019Wake01-25Election Day
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Wake01-36Election Day
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Wake01-37Election Day
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Wake01-38Election Day
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Wake01-39Election Day
TBD_06 (pending upload)Thumbnail
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Wake01-40Election Day
TBD_08 (pending upload)Thumbnail
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Wake01-41Election Day
TBD_09 (pending upload)Thumbnail
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Wake01-42Election Day
TBD_10 (pending upload)Thumbnail
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Wake01-43Election Day
TBD_11 (pending upload)Thumbnail
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Wake01-44Election Day
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Wake01-45Election Day
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Wake01-46Election Day
TBD_15 (pending upload)Thumbnail
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Wake01-47Election Day
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Wake01-49Election Day
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Wake01-50Election Day
TBD_18 (pending upload)Thumbnail
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Wake01-51Election Day
▶ 3950Wake04-01Election Day
▶ 3993Wake04-17Election Day
▶ 3998Wake04-19Election Day
▶ 4000Wake07-01Election Day
▶ 4001Wake07-02Election Day
▶ 4002Wake07-03Election Day
▶ 4003Wake07-04Election Day
▶ 4005Wake07-05Election Day
▶ 4008Wake07-06Election Day
▶ 4009Wake07-07Election Day
▶ 4010Wake07-07AElection Day
▶ 4012Wake07-09Election Day
▶ 4015Wake07-10Election Day
▶ 4016Wake07-12Election Day
▶ 4006Wake08-09Election Day
▶ 4013Wake08-11Election Day
▶ 3946Wake09-01Election Day
▶ 3947Wake09-02Election Day
▶ 3948Wake09-03Election Day
▶ 3949Wake10-01Election Day
▶ 3951Wake10-02Election Day
▶ 3952Wake10-03Election Day
▶ 3953Wake10-05Election Day
▶ 3955Wake10-06Election Day
▶ 3958Wake11-01Election Day
▶ 3959Wake11-02Election Day
▶ 3983Wake12-01Election Day
▶ 3984Wake12-02Election Day
▶ 3986Wake12-04Election Day
▶ 3988Wake12-06Election Day
▶ 3990Wake12-07Election Day
▶ 3991Wake12-08Election Day
▶ 3995Wake12-09Election Day
▶ 3996Wake12-10Election Day
▶ 3999Wake12-11Election Day
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Wake14-01Election Day
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Wake14-02Election Day
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Wake15-01Election Day
TBD_22 (pending upload)Thumbnail
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Wake15-02Election Day
TBD_23 (pending upload)Thumbnail
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Wake15-03Election Day
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Wake15-04Election Day
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Wake16-01Election Day
TBD_26 (pending upload)Thumbnail
not available
Wake16-03Election Day
TBD_27 (pending upload)Thumbnail
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Wake16-04Election Day
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Wake16-05Election Day
TBD_29 (pending upload)Thumbnail
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Wake16-06Election Day
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Wake16-07Election Day
TBD_31 (pending upload)Thumbnail
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Wake16-09Election Day
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Wake16-10Election Day
▶ 3961Wake17-01Election Day
▶ 3963Wake17-02Election Day
▶ 3964Wake17-03Election Day
▶ 3967Wake17-04Election Day
▶ 3968Wake17-05Election Day
3969
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Wake17-06Election Day
▶ 3971Wake17-07Election Day
▶ 3973Wake17-09Election Day
▶ 3975Wake17-10Election Day
▶ 3977Wake17-11Election Day
▶ 3978Wake17-12Election Day
▶ 3980Wake17-13Election Day
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Wake19-03Election Day
TBD_33 (pending upload)Thumbnail
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Wake19-05Election Day
TBD_34 (pending upload)Thumbnail
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Wake19-07Election Day
TBD_35 (pending upload)Thumbnail
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Wake19-09Election Day
TBD_36 (pending upload)Thumbnail
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Wake19-11Election Day
TBD_37 (pending upload)Thumbnail
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Wake19-12Election Day
TBD_38 (pending upload)Thumbnail
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Wake19-13Election Day
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Wake19-14Election Day
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Wake19-15Election Day
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Wake19-16Election Day
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Wake19-17Election Day
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Wake19-18Election Day
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Wake19-19Election Day
TBD_45 (pending upload)Thumbnail
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Wake19-20Election Day
TBD_46 (pending upload)Thumbnail
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Wake19-21Election Day
TBD_47 (pending upload)Thumbnail
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Wake20-01Election Day
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Wake20-03Election Day
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Wake20-04Election Day
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Wake20-05Election Day
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Wake20-06AElection Day
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Wake20-06BElection Day
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Wake20-08Election Day
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Wake20-09Election Day
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Wake20-10Election Day
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Wake20-11Election Day
TBD_57 (pending upload)Thumbnail
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Wake20-12Election Day
TBD_58 (pending upload)Thumbnail
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Wake20-14Election Day
TBD_59 (pending upload)Thumbnail
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Wake20-15Election Day
TBD_60 (pending upload)Thumbnail
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Wake20-16Election Day
TBD_61 (pending upload)Thumbnail
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Wake20-17Election Day
▶ 3944WakeOSCH 1-40One Stop
WakeOSCH 121-127One Stop
WakeOSCH 41-80One Stop
WakeOSCH 81-120One Stop
3936
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WakeOSHT 1-40One Stop
WakeOSHT 121-127One Stop
WakeOSHT 41-80One Stop
WakeOSHT 81-120One Stop
▶ 3942WakeOSJB 1-40One Stop
WakeOSJB 121-127One Stop
WakeOSJB 41-80One Stop
WakeOSJB 81-120One Stop
▶ 3939WakeOSOP 1-40One Stop
WakeOSOP 121-127One Stop
WakeOSOP 41-80One Stop
WakeOSOP 81-120One Stop
▶ 3934WakeOSTA 1-40One Stop
WakeOSTA 121-127One Stop
WakeOSTA 41-80One Stop
WakeOSTA 81-120One Stop

12. Version History

VersionDateChange
v0.42024Internal draft (PDF format); comparison and investigation completed July 2024
v1.02026-06-05First publication. Numbers frozen from the complete transcription state: 1,532 transcribed values, 1,424 comparisons, 483,415 votes audited. Incorporates the WCBE 2024 correspondence, the one-stop machine-aggregation decode, and the write-in equivalence check (27 matches — plausibly equivalent write-in situations).