2024 North Carolina Second Primary 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.

1. Scope

2. A Different Kind of Report

Most Actual Vote reports lead with a single number: how many votes our volunteers independently confirmed against the official record, and how many discrepancies remained. This report is different, and it is worth saying why at the top.

For the 2024 North Carolina Second Primary, our volunteers did the work they always do — they observed the close of polls and video-recorded the precinct results tapes posted at their voting sites. But the official precinct-level results we would normally check those tapes against were not published for this election. Because an Actual Vote comparison requires official precinct-level results to compare against, no comparison analysis was possible here.

We are publishing this report alongside our others because the volunteer effort was real, the recordings are real, and the episode is worth documenting. What follows records the work that was done, the data we hold, and a general lesson about transparency and ballot secrecy that the situation brings into focus.

3. Results in Brief

4. Summary of Findings

On election day, poll observers and volunteers in Granville, Henderson, Lee, and Wake counties video-recorded the results tapes printed and posted at their precincts when the polls closed. Across the four counties, volunteers submitted results tapes from twelve precincts, along with zero tapes, configuration tapes, and recordings made to document polling-place procedure.

The Second Primary was a set of Republican runoffs — US House of Representatives District 13, NC Lieutenant Governor, and NC Auditor. From the legible results tapes, our transcription captured 72 individual precinct-level vote totals — every value our volunteers were able to record. This is precisely the kind of ground-level evidence Actual Vote exists to collect: results read straight from the machine tape at the precinct, before they travel anywhere.

What we could not do was compare those totals against an official precinct-level count, because none was published for this election. The remainder of this report explains that circumstance, records what we hold, and sets out the general lesson it brings into focus.

5. Why No Comparison Was Possible

Following the Second Primary, the North Carolina State Board of Elections chose not to publish precinct-level results, citing the protection of ballot secrecy in a low-turnout runoff. Ballot secrecy is a foundational value in any free election, and we recognize the Board’s decision as an effort to protect it.

That decision is also what made an Actual Vote comparison impossible for this election: with no official precinct-level results released, there was nothing at the precinct level to check our volunteers’ tapes against. We note this as a factual matter, not a grievance. Our work depends on the public release of detailed results, and when that detail is unavailable, the independent verification we offer simply cannot be performed.

6. 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.

A complete analysis compares each transcribed poll-tape value against the corresponding officially published total. That comparison is the heart of the method — and the one step that could not be carried out here, because the official precinct-level figures were not published. For more information, see How Actual Vote Works and Why Actual Vote Is Trustworthy.

7. Transparency and Ballot Secrecy: The General Lesson

Rather than comment on any single decision, we used this occasion to think carefully and generally about the underlying question: how should the transparency of detailed, precinct-level results be balanced against the secrecy of the individual ballot? That is a question we are well placed to address as specialists in vote reporting, and one that every jurisdiction faces. Our general view rests on three points.

First, a precinct total cannot identify any individual on its own; it can do so only in combination with separate records that link named people to their participation — so the accessibility of those participation records, not the detail of results reporting, is the dominant factor in disclosure risk.

Second, where a genuine risk remains, the proportionate response is to suppress only the specific at-risk results cells under an objective, published rule, rather than withholding precinct-level results wholesale.

Third, transparency is best served when the rule for what is withheld, and the reason for it, are themselves made public.

Where these questions are answered with care, detailed results can be released and every voter’s choice can remain their own. The two values are not truly in conflict in the way they are sometimes treated; the tension that occasionally appears between them is narrow, well understood, and addressable with proportionate tools.

8. On the Recordings

The poll-tape recordings our volunteers submitted remain available at av.democracycounts.org (see Section 12). We screened every results tape we collected, contest by contest, for any unanimous cell — a contest in which every recorded vote went to a single choice, which is the specific condition under which a precinct result could contribute to identifying an individual voter. None of the recordings contained one. Because none of them meets that condition, keeping them available is consistent with the standard we ask others to apply, and with the public nature of results posted at the precinct.

9. Thanks and Acknowledgments

America Counts thanks the poll observers and volunteers in Granville, Henderson, Lee, and Wake counties who gave their election day to record and submit these tapes. Work like this — showing up, watching the close, and capturing the result at its source — is the evidentiary foundation of everything Actual Vote does.

10. Technical and Legal Notes

Non-partisan statement

This report is the work of America Counts, a non-partisan 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization. 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.

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. No official precinct-level results were published for this election, so no official-results dataset underlies this report. All uploaded poll-tape recordings used in this report 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. They are not necessarily the opinion of any other person or organization, including the constituent counties’ boards of elections or the North Carolina State Board of Elections.

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. By undertaking this work, we are not representing any presumption that anyone’s work is inherently suspect or that error or fraud must have occurred.

Images

The header photo shows the Blue Ridge Mountains of Western North Carolina, by Wes Hicks 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 do not imply endorsement.

11. Detailed Results

Values transcribed by precinct

Two additional quality-control captures — an inferior duplicate of the Southern Lee tape and a second recording of the Tally Ho tape — were also transcribed, bringing the raw transcribed total to 72. They are not counted as separate submissions.

Submissions by category

12. Appendix: Video Links

Every transcribable submission used in this report is listed below — one row per submission. Click a thumbnail or submission ID to open the original video in the public Actual Vote Video Archive.

Transcribable Submission	Preview	County	Precinct	Voting Method
▶ 4555	▶	Lee	Southern Lee	Election Day
▶ 4556	▶	Lee	Exwards	Election Day
▶ 4557	▶	Henderson	Fletcher	Election Day
▶ 4558	▶	Henderson	Laurel Park	Election Day
▶ 4560	▶	Granville	Creedmoor	Election Day
▶ 4561	▶	Granville	Tally Ho	Election Day
9999 (pending upload)	Thumbnail not available	Granville	Butner	Election Day
9999 (pending upload)	Thumbnail not available	Granville	Mt. Energy	Election Day
9999 (pending upload)	Thumbnail not available	Granville	Wilton	Election Day
9999 (pending upload)	Thumbnail not available	Henderson	Carolina Village	Election Day
9999 (pending upload)	Thumbnail not available	Henderson	North Blue Ridge	Election Day
9999 (pending upload)	Thumbnail not available	Wake	02-05	Election Day

Submissions marked 9999 were recorded outside the Actual Vote app (e.g. by personal camera) and are pending upload to the public archive; their links will go live once uploaded.