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If you’ve already read our advice on Crafting an effective appeal and you want to know what actually happens when you hit the appeal button on MuckRock, here’s the answer.

We only reveal the “Appeal” button if an appeal is an option. We won’t expose it if the request is still processing, or if the jurisdiction does not have any appeal framework.

Exposing the “Appeal” Button”

• When an agency just ignores a request, that’s considered a “Constructive Denial” — if you want to appeal a constructive denial, just let us know by clicking “Get Help” and we’ll flag your request as appealable.
• If you’re seeing another status on your request but believe you should be able to appeal, use “Get Help” to let us know.

I clicked “Appeal”, now what?

When you do click the “Appeal” button, you’ll see a basic dialog that you can use to craft your appeal.

If we have contact information for an appeal, it will be send to that contact. Most appeals are sent by postal mail — we’ll generate and print a letter and mail it out to the appropriate contact. Select “See where this appeal will be sent” if you want to know exactly where we’ll be sending it.

You can use the “Not where this needs to go?” to override our default destination.

Increasingly agencies offer a mechanism for routing appeals through email or a portal. If we have information that one of these electronic options is available, we’ll default to that method. You can always use “

If we don’t have any information at all about where to send an appeal, you’ll see “This appeal communication currently has no valid contact information. We will review it and find a suitable means of submitting it for you.” — You can always tell us where it should go or let us find the best address.

• If you aren’t sure, or want us to figure it out for you, don’t worry. We will research the best address to direct your appeal to and get it there.

• If you know where you want the appeal to be directed, you can let us know by selecting “Not where this needs to go?” and adding the information you have.

Following your Appeal

When you do submit an appeal and we are still researching the best place to direct it, you’ll see the method showing as “None” until the appeal is sent.

This can feel a little counter intuitive, but we’ll update that information once we find the right address and get your appeal out.

From there, you can track the appeal on the request, just the way you have been.