By Jen Schumann | Contributing Writer, Rocky Mountain Voice
When Ada County launched a ballot audit tool built by a small independent company, no one knew what to expect. But what followed surprised even the clerk who helped shape it.
Election skeptics became supporters, recount demands dropped and voters started tracking their own ballots—sometimes using nothing more than a $2 bill.
What began as a simple idea sketched on napkins between an Idaho election official and a civic-minded data entrepreneur would grow into a public-facing ballot verification platform now used by counties in multiple states, including Mesa County, Colorado.
This article is Part 2 of a three-part series on the Ballot Verifier: Mesa’s launch, Ada County’s pilot and the debate over election transparency laws.
Why Ada needed something new
For Ada County Clerk Trent Tripple, the years after 2020 were less about defending election results—and more about finding a better way to show them.
His office could keep responding—or it could build something that would let voters do the checking on their own.
“Post-2020, we were getting inundated with public records requests. People wanted the ballot images so they could verify independently… we were spending a lot of time responding to those.”
Tripple added, “It just got us thinking. Are we operating in a way that builds trust, or are we doing things that cause suspicion?”
The partnership that launched a movement
Tripple met Civera CEO Adam Friedman at a conference. Friedman, an election data researcher, had founded a site called ElectionStats to track and visualize historical vote results.
But both men saw a new opportunity—to bring real-time transparency to current elections.
“We started spitballing. We threw some stuff up on napkins and asked ourselves, ‘is it possible?’”
Over the next 18 months, they built what would become the Ballot Verifier. “It turned into much more than we originally intended.”
From ElectionStats to Verifier: Civera’s evolution
Friedman said his company’s mission began with a frustration: government election data was too hard to access.
“The company was born out of my own frustration with accessing government data… mostly around election results and voting statistics.” He added, “If there was any record that should be considered public, it should be the ballots.”
Unlike traditional election vendors, Civera doesn’t make voting machines or ballot tabulators—and Friedman said that’s by design.
“We’re fully bootstrapped… an independent company. We think there’s great value in us being independent so that we can provide a check on the established players.”
Friedman described the tool as a digital bridge between official tallies and the public’s right to know. “Instead of just a handshake and saying ‘trust us,’ show the work being done. We’re trying to culturally create a shift to ensure that this is the norm, not the exception.”
Ada County Clerk Trent Tripple delivering a demonstration of the Ballot Verifier software
Ballot transparency in practice
The Ballot Verifier lets voters view ballot images alongside cast vote records. In Ada County, Tripple said it has changed how people engage with the system—starting with those who once doubted it.
“Some of our biggest critics… became our biggest fans. I said, come in. Test the system. Tell me what’s wrong. They did. We made adjustments. Now they’re our best advocates.”
One voter marked their ballot with the serial number of a $2 bill—just to test whether they could find it later. They did.
“That’s been a fun thing for folks—to verify their actual ballot was counted correctly and still maintain their privacy.”
Most voters won’t ever check, he admitted—but knowing they can has a powerful effect.
“Most residents won’t look at it… but the fact that it exists brings great comfort and trust.”
The tool has helped with candidate relations, too. “We’re not having to conduct recounts. Candidates can look at the data and say, ‘There’s nothing here.’”
A shift in culture—and expectations
The transparency changed how his staff worked on election night.
“You have to have people that are dedicated. It’s not just a flip-the-switch product.”
“Knowing that everyone is going to see everything we do… we don’t pray for wide margins anymore—we just ensure the results are exact.”
That mindset shift, he said, is just as important as the software itself.
A national vision
Mesa County became the third in the nation to adopt the Ballot Verifier, after Ada County and Tarrant County, Texas. More counties, Friedman said, are on the horizon.
“This is as much a movement as it is a product. We can’t wait to provide this throughout counties across the United States—and eventually at the state level.”
Tripple believes that kind of access belongs everywhere. “It’s not my information. It’s not the government’s information. It’s the voters’ information. I hope that radical transparency becomes the norm”
He added, “We want people talking about how candidates and elected officials are doing their job, not whether or not they were duly elected… That’s the conversation we want to happen around the dinner tables.”
Friedman hopes the platform sets a new standard for election offices nationwide.“We’re trying to culturally create a shift in the cultures of election offices across the country to ensure that this is the norm, not the exception.” He added, “Taxpayers are already paying for this data. They should have the right to access it 24/7.”
This article is Part 2 of a three-part series.
• See how Mesa County rolled out the Ballot Verifier in Part 1: Local access, national implications
• Read what critics say about how Colorado law blocks full transparency in Part 3: The case for deeper reform