Example: Filing a Public Records Request

Because the information on poll tapes is a matter of public record, it’s reasonable to make a public records request — often called a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request — for digital or physical copies of poll tapes from an election. Once you have them, you can video-record them with the Actual Vote app, or in the case of digital files, email them to America Counts.

This method’s big advantage is batching: you can request many tapes by precinct and voting method at once, and you can even request tapes from counties other than your own.

The trade-offs

There are three disadvantages to weigh:

First, officials who receive your request might consider collecting, scanning, and sending the tapes to be an unreasonable amount of work. Second, you acquire the tapes later in the chain of custody — they’re still powerful evidence, just not as strong as tapes recorded right after printing; this is often the most practical method in states that don’t post tapes on election night. Third, it takes perseverance: busy administrators may respond slowly or not at all even when the law says they should, and it can take back-and-forth to agree on exactly how many tapes are delivered and when.

To mitigate all three, be persistent, assertive, respectful, and professional, and avoid even the perception of wasting officials’ time. This third drawback is also why America Counts doesn’t simply file requests in every swing-state county — as a small organization, keeping open threads with administrators in hundreds of counties is infeasible. It’s far better for many people like you to each open a single thread with their home county.

A note on timing

As with appointments: an analysis completed before certification that turns up unexplained discrepancies can support a court challenge; one completed after can’t change the outcome (though it still aids transparency). So try to arrange a delivery date before the certification date. A tight date may not be feasible — but even after certification, please still get us the data, so we can analyze your county’s vote reporting and be better prepared next time.

Before you write your request

Confirm your county can print poll tapes — same as for an appointment: call and ask, or look up your equipment in Verified Voting’s Verifier and compare against our list of machines that can print poll tapes.

Decide how many precincts and voting methods to request. You can simply request results tapes for all precincts and all voting methods (usually election day, absentee by-mail, early voting, and provisional) and see what comes back, then narrow if needed. Find a precinct list by googling “voting precinct list in [your county].” To see which voting methods your county uses, check its election-results site from the last election (look for a “Results by Voting Method” tab).

Choose a delivery window early enough before certification to process everything you receive.

Sample request letter

The National Freedom of Information Coalition has helpful state-by-state guidance on formulating these requests. Below we adapt their North Carolina sample into a letter that could have been used for the 2024-03-05 NC Primary in Alexander County (imagining a physical letter rather than email):

Pat Jones · Member, Alexander County Actual Vote Team · 123 Maple Street · Taylorsville, NC 28681

2024-02-21

Ray Warren · Chairman, Alexander County Board of Elections · 621 Liledoun Road · Taylorsville, NC 28681

Dear Mr. Warren,

Under the North Carolina Public Records Law, G.S. §132-1, I am making a Public Records Request seeking either physical copies (mailed to my address above, or for pickup at your office) or digital scans (emailed, or via a download link, in any common format like .jpg or .pdf) of poll tapes (also called “election tapes,” “tabulator tapes,” or “results tapes”) printed from tabulating machines meeting the following criteria:

• From North Carolina’s 2024-03-05 Primary Election
• From all 15 Alexander County precincts
• For Election Day, Absentee By-Mail, and Early Voting
• The results tapes containing vote totals. I don’t need the zero tapes or other configuration tapes, but if it’s easier to include them, that’s fine
• If, for any combination above, no voting took place (so no tape was printed), that combination is omitted from my request

This set of materials is hereinafter referred to as “copies of poll tapes.” They will be used for legitimate, non-partisan vote-report auditing with the Actual Vote system from the non-profit, non-partisan organization America Counts (briefly described in the postscript). We believe this request is reasonable since the vote totals on poll tapes are a matter of public record.

While we believe it’s unnecessary, if you must redact anything other than the precinct name, voting method, and results section, please go ahead. (Almost all copies we’ve received are not redacted.)

If you deny any part of this request, please cite each specific exemption you believe justifies the refusal, and notify me of the appeal procedures available under the law. Please inform me of any fee — though I request a fee waiver, as the analysis is in the public interest, contributes significantly to transparency, and is not for commercial purposes.

The law requires you to respond “as promptly as possible.” Here we believe that means within a week of election day, since we must complete our analysis before certification to leave room to follow up on any discrepancies we find. If you expect a significant delay, please let me know when I might expect the copies. I prefer to communicate by phone or email.

Thank you for considering my request.

Sincerely, Pat Jones · heyitspatmjones@gmail.com · 555-555-5555

Postscript — how the Actual Vote system works, and why it’s inherently non-partisan. You can learn all about it at americacounts.us/start-here. In brief: when we receive the copies, we compare the vote totals on the tapes with the officially reported results. Almost always they match exactly — independent evidence that vote reporting was done correctly, which can help defend the Board against bad-faith allegations of error or fraud. Occasionally the technique surfaces an initial non-match; often the Board provides an explanation showing we simply hadn’t accounted for a piece of valid reporting logic, and it resolves to a match. In the rare case with no satisfactory explanation — what we call an apparent discrepancy — our result is strong evidence that error or fraud may have occurred, and it becomes critical to investigate and rectify — for the sake of accuracy. Publishing our conclusions, whatever they are and regardless of how they align with any team member’s politics, increases transparency. We undertake this with no presupposition that anything went wrong in Alexander County — we know almost all administrators are honest, hard-working professionals — but with the understanding that if error or fraud ever occurred anywhere, this work makes it likelier to be caught. We hope you agree this auditing is legitimate, non-partisan, and important, and that you’ll fulfill our request. Thanks!

Following up

Start well before election day to avoid back-and-forth during the hectic certification period. If you get no response in a reasonable time, follow up — ideally by phone; Board staff are often friendly and helpful, and talking to the real person behind the request helps convince them it’s genuine and not a waste of time. If the request is denied, it’s again up to you how hard to push back: it’s reasonable to ask, and many counties have happily delivered such requests — but don’t impose unreasonably on busy administrators.

When the tapes arrive: email us the PDFs, video-record physical copies with the app (after a quick look at Start Here), or mail us the physical tapes. We’ll take it from there.