An aisle between two long rows of stored lever voting machines in a board of elections warehouse, under bare overhead lamps.

Chain of custody for election offices

Easily prove your work.

Your office already prints the ballots, packs the precinct bags, seals the containers and signs the log. Ballot Buddy makes the record while that work happens, so the chain of custody is finished when the election is.

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The record is asked for at

  • Recount
  • Audit
  • Public records request
  • Lawsuit

The problem

The record is assembled after the fact.

When someone asks how a package of ballots got from the printer to the precinct and back, the answer is in a stack of paper forms, a spreadsheet and somebody's memory.

Assembling it takes days, and the deadline belongs to whoever asked. A missing initial or a seal number nobody wrote down turns up only once you go looking for it. Ballot Buddy writes each handoff down as it happens, so there is nothing left to reconstruct.

How it works

Four points in a process you already run.

  1. 01

    Tag at print

    Each package of ballots gets an RFID label as it comes off the press. The label says which ballot styles are inside.

  2. 02

    Sign at packout

    Workers build the precinct bags and sign for each other's work. The sign-off lands on the packages and seal numbers it actually covers.

  3. 03

    Read at handoff

    A wand reads the package through the sealed bag. Nobody opens anything to find out what is in it.

  4. 04

    Reconcile on return

    Packages come back and get read again. What returned is set against what went out, and anything that does not match is named.

End to end

Watch a package go out and come back.

The label goes on at the press. The precinct bags get built and signed. A wand reads each package at every handoff, and the chain-of-custody form fills in as the work happens.

1 min 4 sec  ·  Sound on

A macro photograph of a UHF RFID inlay: a copper dipole antenna with comb-shaped end loops and a small silicon chip, on clear adhesive film over black plastic.
Fig. 01 UHF RFID inlay

The label

Applied at the press. Read through the bag.

The label goes on the moment the package is printed, before it leaves the room. From then on a wand confirms what is inside without cutting a seal and without counting a stack. Checking the contents no longer costs you the seal.

  • Carries which ballot styles are inside
  • Read through sealed packaging
  • Applied at print, before the first handoff
An election worker bent over a clear plastic ballot bag under a single hard light at night, one hand on the bag's label, with more filled bags stacked beside him in the dark.
Fig. 02 Sealing a bag of ballots

Pack out

Your workers already sign for each other.

Officials preparing precinct bags sign off on each other's work today. Ballot Buddy attaches that sign-off to the packages and seal numbers it covers, so a year later the signature still points at something specific.

Your workers keep the forms they already know. Alternates are available if your office wants them.

A warehouse aisle between racks of shrink-wrapped pallets. A worker aims a pistol-grip scanner at a location label on a rack beam; the red laser line falls across the label.

Fig. 03  · Reading a location label

Custody

Every handoff is a read, not a line on a form.

Printer to warehouse. Warehouse to precinct. Precinct back to central count. Each move is a read with a time, a place and a name on it.

The record

You send the record. You do not build it.

After the election Ballot Buddy produces the chain of custody as one document: every package, every read, every signature, every seal number, in order and with times.

When the recount or the records request arrives, the work of answering it is already done.

A county central count station: an election worker at a monitor between two postal trays of ballot envelopes, with barriers and an observer aisle behind her.
Fig. 04 Central count station

Delivery

You choose where the record starts.

Some offices run Ballot Buddy in-house. Some want it inside the system they already buy from. Some want us in the building on election week.

  • Do it yourself

    Your staff runs Ballot Buddy on your own equipment and your own schedule.

  • Vendor integration

    Ballot Buddy runs with the printer or vendor your office already uses.

  • Consulting

    We map how ballots move through your office, then set the point where custody begins.

  • Election services

    We do the tagging, the packout record and the reconciliation for you.

Next step

See it against your own process.

Walk us through how ballots move in your office today. We will show you where the record would start and what it looks like when the election is over.

Request a walkthrough
Hours
9 a.m. to 5 p.m., Monday through Friday