Photo Finish
Photo Finish is a great way volunteers can take action to detect potential hacking and other problems with voting equipment. Our photographer volunteers make photos of precinct poll tapes (or take videos, if the poll tape is long, and then screenshot that into photos for the uploader), posted on precinct doors or windows, at the end of election days and upload those to our website. Our analyst volunteer group then compares the uploaded precinct poll tape vote counts with final county and state vote counts. We will publish these results and any discrepancies on our Photo Finish Results page. This Action Item is a GREAT way for volunteers to have a concrete impact on election integrity.
How you can participate in the ProtectOurVotes.com Photo Finish Action:
Please sign up BELOW to our volunteer list to be a Photo Finish volunteer. You can choose to be a photographer and upload the photo of the poll tape for a precinct at the end of an election day and/or be a volunteer analyst to compare poll tapes to final election results. Please select your choice in the volunteer form. If you prefer to sign up by email, send all of the information in the volunteer form to us at: info@protectourvotes.com.
Fill out our Photo Finish volunteer sign-up form here:
Sample Precinct Poll Tape
The poll tape looks like a receipt and is printed by the precinct at the end of election day, after voting has ended. This captures the votes cast at the precinct on election day.
Photo Finish Photo Uploader
Upload the photo of your precinct’s Poll Tape (posted on the front door of the precinct when voting is completed) by clicking our ProtectOurVotes.com PHOTO UPLOADER BELOW. Here is a short instructional How to Upload Poll Tapes video, narrated by Jennifer Cohn:
Make sure you enter the precinct and county name. You can add your ward name in the precinct box and municipality, town or parish in the county box. Please use your judgement and fill out the uploader fields with the information your voting place uses for these general categories.
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If there are technical problems with the uploader, upload your photo to this link in Google Drives: GOOGLE PHOTO UPLOAD LINK or send us your photos or videos by email to uploads@protectourvotes.com with PHOTO FINISH 2020 in the ¨Subject¨ heading and include the name of the precinct, county and state.
You can find the uploads at the link: Photo Finish Uploads and Results, which will be updated when we have compiled the results. We will notify all volunteers when the results have been posted.
We are offering Actual Vote, an app by Democracy Counts (www.democracycounts.org) for use by Photo Finish volunteers in Florida. If you prefer making a video of a poll tape, download Actual Vote and set up a google account in advance of election night. Please practice with Actual Vote BEFORE you go to take photos of precinct poll tapes.
Here are the links to download Actual Vote. These links contain both the install links and the latest instructions:
https://democracycounts.org/actual-vote/apple-instructions
https://democracycounts.org/actual-vote/android-instructions
Install the Democracy Actual Vote video-taking App for Apple iphone:
Install the App for Android:
We conducted our first Photo Finish Action for the 2020 Presidential Primaries Saturday July 11 in Louisiana. We targeted the following elections for future Photo Finish Actions:
- July 14 Alabama state runoff
- July 14 Texas state runoff
- August 4 Michigan state primary
- August 6 Tennessee state primary
- August 11 Connecticut presidential primary
- August 11 Wisconsin state primary
- August 11 Georgia State Runoff
- August 18 Florida state primary
- September 8 New Hampshire state primary
- November 3 General Election 2020
If you don’t have time or are not able to take photos, please consider helping us with our States’ Election Law and Policies project to gather all relevant state statutes regarding the posting and photographing of Precinct Poll Tapes: States’ Election Law and Policies
The ProtectOurVotes.com Photo Finish Action Item was inspired by this toolkit by Bev Harris of Black Box Voting and the findings of Shelby County Election Commissioner Bennie Smith.
If you have any questions, contact us at info@protectourvotes.com