By law in VA copies of the return sheets and machine tapes, or Statement of Results (SOR), from tabulation machines are public record and must be made available for 60 days after the election. (see VA 24.2-658) A grassroots team of a number of volunteers (coordinated through Virginia First Audits) made a concerted effort to collect images of a number of these tapes for specific localities of interest. I have been going through these tapes and comparing the results they show with the official results presented by the VA Department of Elections. I started with Prince William County, which is where I live.
The reported totals of counted votes on the tapes should match exactly to what is reported as counted votes by the VA Department of Elections, after correctly omitting over-votes/under-votes and separating out provisional ballots (which is simple to do with the way VA reported its data). I have confirmed this should be the case via multiple email and phone conversations with election experts and officials, in an effort to make sure that I wasn’t missing some obvious process or fact that could account for the discrepancies.
An example of the information included on these tapes is shown below in Figure 1. The exposed section of the far left tape shows the vote totals for that machine, per candidate, summarized by House and Congressional district combination. The exposed section of the middle tape in the image shows the report summary of the total ballots counted for each House and Congressional district combination. The exposed section of the far right tape top in the image shows the signatures of the election officials on the tape, and the bottom show the introductory information at the beginning of the report that identifies the machine information. Each machine is dedicated to a specific precinct and ballot type and are labeled as such.
Computation of Results
The machine tape images corresponding to absentee ballot categories (“ABS” – Mail-In Absentee, “EARLY” – In Person Early Voting, and “PE” – Mail-In ballots received Post Election but with valid postmark) were examined by hand and the tabulated results for each precinct were extracted. These results were then compared with the reported totals from the VA Department of Elections website dated 12-11-2021 (https://apps.elections.virginia.gov/SBE_CSV/ELECTIONS/ELECTIONRESULTS/2021/2021%20November%20General%20.csv).
The “Margin” column in the tables below accounts for individual candidate totals that could not be read from the tape images due to imaging errors, but the end of tape reports listed the total number of ballots processed for that precinct so a maximum limit (“Margin”) of the number of votes is known. We are currently in the process of going back to the registrar and filling in the missing data.
All of the tables below correctly omit undervotes/overvotes and provisional ballot counts. (The machine tapes do not include provisional ballots.)
The results presented below in Table 1, Table 2 and Table 3 show a consistent pattern of the machine tapes and the Department of Elections data giving nearly identical matches to the In-Person Early vote, but different results for the
Prince William County – Congressional District 01
| Democrat | Libertarian | Republican | Total | Margin | |
| TAPE ABS | 5076 | 89 | 1842 | 7028 | 21 |
| TAPE EARLY | 9748 | 64 | 7639 | 17451 | 0 |
| TAPE PE | 193 | 9 | 86 | 341 | 53 |
| CSV ABS | 5155 | 90 | 1884 | 7129 | |
| CSV EARLY | 9746 | 64 | 7638 | 17448 | |
| CSV PE | 251 | 13 | 96 | 360 | |
| PWC CD 01 | Est. Delta Dem | Est. Delta Lib | Est. Delta Rep | Est. Delta Tot | Est. Delta Tot – Margin |
| CSV ABS – TAPE ABS | 79 | 1 | 42 | 122 | 101 (~ 1.42 % diff) |
| CSV EARLY – TAPE EARLY | -2 | 0 | -1 | -3 | -3 (~ -.02 % diff) |
| CSV PE – TAPE PE | 58 | 4 | 10 | 72 | 19 (~ 5.28 % diff) |
Prince William County, Congressional District 10
| Democrat | Libertarian | Republican | Total | Margin | |
| TAPE ABS | 2292 | 28 | 996 | 3316 | 0 |
| TAPE EARLY | 5809 | 28 | 6045 | 11882 | 0 |
| TAPE PE | 57 | 4 | 24 | 119 | 34 |
| CSV ABS | 2320 | 28 | 1009 | 3357 | |
| CSV EARLY | 5809 | 28 | 6045 | 11882 | |
| CSV PE | 79 | 5 | 43 | 127 | |
| PWC CD 10 | Est. Delta Dem | Est. Delta Lib | Est. Delta Rep | Est. Delta Tot | Est. Delta Tot – Inc Slop |
| CSV ABS – TAPE ABS | 28 | 0 | 13 | 41 | 41 (~ 1.22 % diff) |
| CSV EARLY – TAPE EARLY | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 (~ 0.00 % diff) |
| CSV PE – TAPE PE | 22 | 1 | 19 | 42 | 8 (~ 6.30 % diff) |
Prince William County, Congressional District 11
| Democrat | Libertarian | Republican | Total | Margin | |
| TAPE ABS | 5307 | 93 | 1333 | 6733 | 0 |
| TAPE EARLY | 9780 | 60 | 3578 | 13418 | 0 |
| TAPE PE | 152 | 6 | 36 | 293 | 99 |
| CSV ABS | 5375 | 93 | 1314 | 6782 | |
| CSV EARLY | 9780 | 60 | 3578 | 13418 | |
| CSV PE | 237 | 10 | 63 | 310 | |
| PWC CD 11 | Est. Delta Dem | Est. Delta Lib | Est. Delta Rep | Est. Delta Tot | Est. Delta Tot – Inc Slop |
| CSV ABS – TAPE ABS | 68 | 0 | -19 | 49 | 49 (~ 0.72 % diff) |
| CSV EARLY – TAPE EARLY | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 (~ 0.00 % diff) |
| CSV PE – TAPE PE | 85 | 4 | 27 | 116 | 17 (~ 5.48 % diff) |