SB 1177

Risk-limiting audits

This bill requires each county clerk to perform risk-limiting audits beginning with elections held in 2027. The bill defines a “risk-limiting audit” as an audit protocol that uses statistical methods to limit to acceptable levels the risk of certifying a preliminary election outcome that is an incorrect outcome.

Under the bill, each county clerk must conduct a risk-limiting audit of selected contests for each election by manual inspection of random samples of paper ballots in randomly selected audit units. An “audit unit” is, generally, a ward, election district, reporting unit, batch, scanner feed, or other unit of vote aggregation used by a county to report electronic voting system or voting machine vote totals. The bill defines a “selected contest” as a contested statewide election for a candidate or referendum that garners the most total votes and, if available at the same election, at least one additional contested statewide election for a candidate or referendum that is randomly selected by the Elections Commission at a public meeting held no later than seven days after the election.

Under the bill, the county clerk must complete the risk-limiting audit of each election before completing the county canvass and certifying the election results to the Elections Commission. If a risk-limiting audit of a selected contest results in a full manual tally of ballots that were cast using an electronic voting system, the vote counts according to the full manual tally will replace the reported vote counts using an electronic voting system for the purpose of determining the official results.

Finally, under current law, following each general election the Elections Commission must audit the performance of each voting system used in this state to determine the error rate of the system in counting ballots that are validly cast by voters. The risk-limiting audit under the bill does not replace the performance audit under current law. Under the bill, if a general election contest is selected for a risk-limiting audit, the commission conducts a performance audit and the county clerks conducts a risk-limiting audit.

Removing excess ballots from the vote count

Under current law, for purposes of reconciling the votes cast after an election, if the number of ballots exceeds the total number of voters recorded on the poll list, the inspectors or board of absentee ballot canvassers, as appropriate, place the ballots in a ballot box and one of the inspectors or a member of the board of absentee ballot canvassers publicly and without examination draws from the ballot box the number of ballots equal to the excess number of ballots. The excess ballots drawn from the box are not counted, but are marked on the original canvass as having been removed due to an excess number of ballots. The removed ballots are set aside and preserved.

Under the bill, beginning with the implementation of risk-limiting audits, if the number of ballots exceeds the total number of voters recorded on the poll list, all of the excess ballots are counted. The inspectors or board of absentee ballot canvassers, as appropriate, document the discrepancy in detail, including the number and type of excess ballots. Any documented discrepancy in the number and type of excess ballots are factored into the risk-limiting audit determinations. If the discrepancy exceeds 0.5 percent of the total ballots cast in the audit unit, the Elections Commission must conduct an investigation into the cause of the discrepancy.