This paper, coauthored by Verified Voting and Citizens for Election Integrity Minnesota, describes how to dovetail audits and recounts to bolster public confidence in election results. Every state can do better, and this paper provides guidelines for how.
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Fundamentals of an RLA, including what is needed to conduct an RLA and how an RLA differs from other types of audits.
Post-election audits play a significant role in providing evidence that voters can trust election outcomes, but we continue to see calls for sham reviews disguised as “audits.” Sham reviews are designed to undermine legitimate election results, mislead the public, and ultimately leave our elections – and our democracy – less secure. Here’s how to tell the difference.
The Price of Voting draws on probably the largest dataset of voting system contracts ever assembled, spanning well over 400 jurisdictions. This wealth of examples provides unprecedented insight into vendors’ pricing strategies, including their wide use of ad hoc discounts and their sizable annual support revenues. The report astutely combines quantitative analysis and case studies to make best use of the available data. At the same time, The Price of Voting is admirably candid about its limitations and cautious in its generalizations. Public officials preparing to acquire voting systems, and citizens concerned about voting system negotiations and contracts, will better understand the challenges after reading it.
Condensing the story of 2020 into one report hasn’t been easy: not just because of all the work that took place last year, but because in many ways, it’s the story of everything that’s happened since 2016. As we note in our “What’s Next” section, we face similar opportunities and challenges now – but this time, we are strengthened both by the lessons we’ve learned and the allies we’ve gained.
The use of electronic poll books has increased significantly in recent elections. Almost three quarters of registered voters live in jurisdictions in which electronic poll books will be used to check in voters for in person voting at Election Day polling places this November. The Verified Voting team has collected data on electronic poll books, including the makes and models in use across the country, and added it to the Verifier, our comprehensive data set of voting equipment usage.
With less than three months before the general election and amidst a global pandemic, here’s what can still happen to ensure the security and verifiability of our elections.
The primary elections conducted during the COVID-19 pandemic demonstrated acute challenges associated with ensuring the accuracy, integrity and verifiability of elections. Public trust in the election results is contingent upon the principle that governs a democracy: that each voter has a free and fair opportunity to cast a ballot privately and have each ballot counted as cast.
Jurisdictions across the country have seen a significant increase in mail voting during their 2020 primary elections due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Several jurisdictions have required additional time to tabulate results — an indication that they will likely need more time and resources for the November general election. Verified Voting completed an analysis to better understand how many jurisdictions currently counting mail ballots on hand-fed scanners or by hand may face an unprecedented volume of mail ballots for this technology in the 2020 general election.
Guidance by Common Cause and Verified Voting outlines that remote accessible vote by mail options that keep voters choices private and secure already exist and should be made available to voters with disabilities as states increase access to vote by mail.