Concerned voters are ramping up efforts to preserve election integrity, and one creative company has created an app to report and share suspicious incidents. VotifyNow is a downloadable app that compiles nationwide reports from observers, such as voters in Arizona complaining about receiving unrequested ballots in the mail. On Election Day, the app will provide users with information about what incidents are being reported in their localities.
VotifyNow founder Johnny Vieira told The Arizona Sun Times, “Our mission is to restore confidence in elections. We spent the last 16 months developing VotifyNow using very smart code and algorithms to help voters accurately report suspicious incidents with the touch of just a couple buttons. We put this much time into our platform to help users avoid false flags and give them confidence knowing anything they report will be vetted thoroughly before ever being shared with others, unlike other groups and media out there.“
The app was in place during the primary election and “battle tested,” Vieira said. Currently, VotifyNow has thousands of users. The users and incidents are expected to skyrocket by Nov. 8, providing VotifyNow with a more detailed picture of election issues.
Some of the most common reports coming in currently from Arizona regarding mail-in ballots deal with voters receiving early ballots even though they have requested — sometimes repeatedly — to be taken off the permanent early voter list. Another frequent complaint came from voters receiving ballots mailed to their residence for people who do not live there — nor are they addressed to the homeowners who lived there immediately before them.
A report from Pinal County stated, “I again received another Pinal County Recorder Official Balloting Material in Arizona for someone that does not live here. I bought this home in March of 2022 and have received three different ballots for three different people that are not the name of the person that I bought the home from.”
Some reports also provide information helpful for its political value. A complaint by a Pima County resident said her son was put back on the permanent early voter list, even though he’d requested to be removed. He is registered as an Independent, and is bombarded by daily emails, texts, and phone calls from the Democratic Party but not the Republican Party. They offer him money to help collect ballots.
The VotifyNow team received multiple complaints about other voters in three to four states being offered $250, including two battleground states, Pennsylvania and Georgia.
During the primary election, one of the problems users reported was an outage of the livestream video lasting several hours at the Maricopa County Elections tabulation center. VotifyNow reported this back to users in real time.
There is a thorough vetting system that looks into all of the complaints. “Nothing goes out and is shared with the public unless it’s been verified with multiple reputable sources,” Veiera said. “There are too many stories out there in the media asserting voter fraud when the incidents turn out to be nothing; they’re mistakes caused by some overly zealous reporter or website, which got the facts wrong from being sloppy. We strive for accuracy.”
Have already documented more serious incidents ( photo/video footage) but still need to further vette before sharing to proper channels.Stay tuned and stay vigilant🙏 report anything suspicious to https://t.co/tCU8kwLiZh
— VotifyNow (@VotifyNow) October 25, 2022
A new feature will allow users to report voter suppression incidents. Vieira said he wants the app to be inclusive of voters from both the left and the right, and recognizes that for Democrats, voter suppression is a concern.
Leaders of local organizations are encouraged to ask for access to the back end of the app to assist as co-admins analyzing the reports for patterns of suspicious activity, since they know their localities well.
Vieira said the platform is deliberately decentralized, with no single entity like the GOP or a specific group controlling the information. “It’s a network of communities working together with their neighbors and fellow citizens in their towns and communities,” he told The Sun Times.
The categories for filing reports include mail-in ballots, polling locations, vote verification issues, miscellaneous red flags, and a catch-all for other incidents. Vieira encourages users to take photos through the app, instead of on their phone, since the app instructs them to pinpoint on a map where the incident took place.
There are three other major features in VotifyNow, with two live already. A candidate awareness section compiles information on all the candidates in a voter’s area, with an option to rate the candidates. A second feature provides voters with news about upcoming school board and city council meetings, and encourages users to suggest news and dialogue to share in their areas. Finally, there will be updated voter lists to assist canvassers.
Vieira showed The Sun Times some of the hate mail he’s received, which included threats and profanity. He said the mainstream media asked him for interviews but they’ve dropped clues it will not be fair reporting; one journalist didn’t even try to disguise the fact he intended to make the story about QAnon — which has nothing to do with the app.
Vieira expects the number of incidents reported to soar soon due to volunteers monitoring ballot drop boxes. He urges volunteers to refrain from engaging with people dropping off ballots, and stick to taking a photo of any questionable activity through the app.
The Precinct Strategy, which is leading an effort to take back control of the Republican Party through precinct committeemen, promotes the VotifyNow app on its website.
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Rachel Alexander is a reporter at The Arizona Sun Times and The Star News Network. Follow Rachel on Twitter. Email tips to [email protected].
