Election integrity app allows users to find suspected irregularities, report them to officials

An election integrity app called VotifyNow allows users to report election irregularities, and it can make those reports available to individuals or organizations, including county officials, journalists, and candidates.

VotifyNow began in 2019, after complaints of election fraud became prevalent in the 2016 presidential and 2018 midterm elections, the founder of VotifyNow, Johnny Vieira, told Just the News on Wednesday. He noted that, at the time, candidates on the left were discussing election fraud, whereas now, conservatives are more concerned about it.

“We absolutely encourage anyone to file reports,” Vieira said.

“Our goal is more transparency,” he added, noting that “with all the craziness with elections, this will help build confidence. With transparency comes confidence in the system.”

He explained that he has been an entrepreneur since he was a teenager but was not involved in politics. Vieira created Vieira Business Ventures, which is the entity under which his projects are managed. He said that he funded VotifyNow out of his own pocket and doesn’t take donations.

App users can report issues and include a photo or video, which are automatically geo-tagged and timestamped, Vieira said. The reports are purportedly vetted for authenticity and after an incident has been reported multiple times, the area in which it occurred is given a color-coded dot on a map, ranging from white, which means benign, to red, meaning the most nefarious.

Users sign up according to the county in which they live but can search beyond their county for incident reports, he added.

One way the app can be used is by informing voters about vote centers that have issues reported about them so they can choose to vote elsewhere. Some states have multiple vote centers within a county at which a voter can cast a ballot, but other states have delineated precincts where voters are assigned to vote.

Reported incidents are filed into a PDF-style format that can be sent to county officials encourage them to locate voting locations with issues and determine whether to review the locations, Vieira explained. Reports can be made available about 15 minutes after the issues have been reported. Journalists and candidates can also receive the reports, so they learn of alleged irregularities quickly, rather than late in the day or after Election Day.

Users can report issues prior to Election Day. Since the 2020 presidential election, issues such as ballot harvesting at ballot drop boxes, voting machine issues, and ballot chain of custody problems have been controversial elements of election integrity discussions and policy-making.

“We're looking to help people make decisions on real-time information that is vetted as thoroughly as possible,” Vieira said. He also noted while the app isn’t the final solution to election issues, it will at least “chip away” at it.

The app was used by voters in the 2022 midterm elections, with Arizona making up at least 30% of more than “8000 VOTER SUPPRESSION incidents from across the country,” according to VotifyNow’s account on X, the platform previously called Twitter.

VotifyNow reports were given to the legal team of 2022 GOP Arizona gubernatorial nominee Kari Lake, who used it in her election challenge lawsuit, Vieira said.

Lake’s War Room account on X responded to VotifyNow’s post about providing “evidence that was used in her legal case.” The War Room account tagged AZ Central in their response, saying, “Here's more of that evidence you said doesn't exist.”

Vieira explained that the app automatically kicks out bots and that bad actors reporting “false flags” are caught. For the few bad actors that make it through, they wouldn’t appear on the map of reported incidents, and there is a limited amount of reports that can be made by an individual user over a period of time, he added.

The app also has sections for users to check for upcoming city council and school board meetings, as well as reporting on border concerns and a canvassing tool, Vieira said.