US Election Audits & Legislation:

Getting Started

Initial Questions to Consider

Saturday, September 11, 2021

Assembled by the retired founder of

US Election Audits & Legislation, Getting Started

“Free election of masters does not

abolish the masters or the slaves.”
― Herbert Marcuse

Overview
State legislatures, Secretaries of State and election officials in several battleground states remain
under public pressure to both provide greater transparency into US public elections and unify the
public’s faith in our governmental and election systems.

To achieve these ends, some interests are vying for full forensic audits of the 2020 election, while
others hope to abolish the current electronic voting systems, and still others seek to modify existing
election legislation. Yet, where does one begin, and how?

All paths are resource and time intensive and interested parties should closely examine their desired
goals before embarking on the latest election fad promoted by personalities in the media.

This preliminary document will serve as an initial onramp to the process, provide some of the
questions citizens, non-profits, and other institutions may explore when first considering a dive into
improved election transparency and accuracy. Additionally, please make sure to review the
attachments and visit the reference documents as there is a library of valuable content to consider
when engaging in this process.

Insights are built upon the lessons learned from 10 years of near-real-time election monitoring,
results analysis, election machine examination, and election auditing in the USA by the Election
Science Institute (ESI).

First Step: Identify & Prioritize Goals

Each unique set of goals creates a unique set of research questions which then alters one’s focus,
path, and budget. Ultimately this list should be finalized by local constituents, but the advice of
external election experts and local election officials should be sought to help walk through the
options and their potential outcomes. Below is an example list of goals for consideration:
determine error rate in a given jurisdiction’s 2020 election results;
determine if jurisdiction’s electronic voting system was compromised in 2020;
devise meaningful oversight & monitoring techniques for 2022 and beyond;
create best practices for securing existing election system from penetration by bad actors;
improve the election process via legislation;
replace a jurisdiction’s existing electronic voting.

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US Election Audits & Legislation, Getting Started

Next: Determine Specific Research Questions

Before embarking upon any election integrity related effort, one must clearly understand what
questions must be answered to help:
Advance trust in the election system;
Improve election accuracy;
Increase security of the election system for 2022 and beyond.
It is imperative to stay focused on developing very specific questions that reveal tangible, credible
answers, and resist political rhetoric claiming to “reverse previous election results” and all efforts to
"shoot for the moon" by conducting expensive and time intensive, full, manual recounts of paper
ballots. Use a phased investigative approach, whereby initial search is limited but guides a path for
further search, with each step providing justification for the next.

For example, below are sample, preliminary research questions:

What was the quantity of adjudicated ballots during the election? How does this adjudication
rate compare to previous adjudication rates?
- in previous elections?
- across neighboring jurisdictions?
Who was present during adjudication (must be representatives from all parties with candidates
in the election)?
Was the outcome [in various races] across adjudicated ballots different than across regularly
voted ballots?
Answers to the above research questions are available from your county election officials and can
be analyzed prior to election certification. Political candidates should have staff inside the
election office watching the adjudication process and recording this data, in a statistically
significant and structured manner in real time. Other interested parties can request this
information from their election office via Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), or by visiting the
election office and requesting this data from the clerk at the desk (a processing fee is typical).

Review Lessons Learned from Case Study

In the Appendix we briefly delve into the 2020 election in Wayne County, Michigan.

If one resists impulsive reactionary thinking and approaches, such as “re-counting or re-scanning
all the paper ballots,” and instead attempts to proceed in an efficient, strategic, cost-savings
manner, then one quickly learns that election investigations are mired in incredible detail that
requires an objective and scientific approach. One must develop mental maps of the election
process and be able to create meaningful research questions that deliver relevant findings.

Election science is not as straight forward as it appears on the surface. Constituents seeking clarity
need to be prepared to both understand the domain and properly assess their goals and research
objectives, or they will quickly be overwhelmed in complexity and data. Additionally, one must be
aware that bad actors may exploit this overwhelmed state, adding further confusion and noise to the
process.
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US Election Audits & Legislation, Getting Started

Legislative Themes
If there is a path for a legislative approach, then the following should be considered for evaluation.
Independent Technology Providers
- States should legislate their election officials’ contract with independent technology
companies (not voting machine vendors) for tech support of voting machines.
Real Time Reporting of Key Election Data
- It should be legislated that ancillary systems are deployed, allowing election officials to
easily publish for public viewing, in near real time, the following data (prior to, during and
post-election, where applicable):
To be published after poll closing, daily reports of votes cast by precinct, by batch/lot, to
include time stamps of each report, separated by mail-in, absentee, adjudicated, and
regular ballots (with data being daily reported starting from 1st day of voting).
adjudication settings of each tabulator;
optical scanner resolution settings;
Logic and Accuracy (L&A) and penetration test results.
Enhanced System Security
- States should legislate the securing of voting systems and the surrounding Information
Technology (IT) infrastructure. This would include activities such as the following:
sealing all open physical ports and all external cases on all voting system machines;
properly enforcing security on all portable storage devices (for example, storage should
write-only and write-once media);
remove all wireless communications adapters from voting system machines;
place physical monitors on all network traffic between and on all voting systems in the
network where these monitors instantly report all data to a localized secured storage
system;
conduct and successfully pass a system penetration test in every county prior to each
election
- There are additional security measures that can be deployed, but these would require
software code changes to the voting system itself.
- Employ paper ballots possessing anti-counterfeit measures.
System Certification & Inspections
- States should create and utilize their own contracted vendors to certify machine on a regular
basis. This should include independent validation of the voting system as well as the IT
infrastructure surrounding the system.
- Inspections of voting systems should be conducted no less than twice per year as well as
unannounced inspections on a random basis.
- Independent inspectors must possess the power to decertify the use of the system in the
election until the system can pass certification.
- All vendors used must be transparent regarding financial and relational connections so
public can have trust there is no conflict of interests in vendors used.

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US Election Audits & Legislation, Getting Started

Mandatory Manual Recounts

- A manual recount should be conducted across statistically significant samples of precincts.
- An independent statistical firm well versed in statistical sampling should be contracted with
to select a unique sample after each election.
Voter Registration & ID
- Voter registration must prove voter is a US citizen eligible to vote.

Consideration: Previous Election Outcomes versus Future Elections

Resist the temptation to over invest energies and resources into past election that have already been
certified with the goal of overturning the result. Election officials typically begin preparing for the
next General election 10 months or more before the most recent election, especially given the need
to conduct Primary elections. Hence, there is little time to impact the performance of the next
election once the results of a General election are certified – perhaps only 14 months. So carefully
consider whether to invest one’s energy in the past or future elections.

Communicate with Local Election Officials

Once you have determined your goals, your research questions, and your path, it would be wise to
meet with various county election officials to conduct a frank discussion. If approached in the spirit
of improving the election process, election officials will often be willing to assist and should be able
to provide insights that you may have not considered further improving your course of action.

Finally: Document the Plan

After receiving input from the election community, plan your approach and document it. This
should include:
your goals;
list of specific research questions you want answered;
resources from election officials that you need in order to answer your questions;
proposed specific legislative changes, if desired;
a set of talking points that explains your goals and plan in a manner simple enough so that it is
understandable by the media and the public.

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US Election Audits & Legislation, Getting Started

About ESI
The Election Science Institute (ESI) was a national, non-partisan, non-profit scientific organization,
founded in 2001 and disbanded in 2011.

ESI monitored public elections in the U.S. to identify voting irregularities and worked directly with
election officials and Secretaries of State to help them implement systems that increased accuracy,
accountability, and transparency.

Select highlights of ESI’s work:

Conducted first forensic audit of an electronic election (Cuyahoga County, Ohio – 2006);
Performed code review and vulnerability remediation of ES&S voting machines;
Deployed real-time 360° election monitoring (incl. exit polling);
Developed trusted relationships with Election officials & SoS’s across the nation;
Select ESI Media appearances:
CNN CBS TV News
McNeil Lehrer NPR
Lou Dobbs PBS Now
American Enterprise Institute Diane Rehm Show

The organization was disbanded due to lack of public interest in election integrity, a vacuum of will
by the political class to address election transparency & accuracy, and a failure of the funding
community to provide support.

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US Election Audits & Legislation, Getting Started

Reference Documents
ESI Archive (select documents and media):
https://votewatch.wordpress.com

Election Transparency: How Ready Are States and Counties?

(See Exhibit 2: Items Necessary for Election Transparency)
https://votewatch.wordpress.com/2021/07/25/esi-election-transparency-how-ready-are-states-and-counties/

Smart Audit of Election 2020, A Reasonable Path forward for State Legislatures
https://votewatch.wordpress.com/2021/08/24/smart-audit-of-election-2020-a-reasonable-path-forward-for-state-
legislatures

The ESI Model of Election Oversight

https://wordpress.com/post/votewatch.wordpress.com/174

ESI Election Integrity Model,

Election day data collected, analyzed & reported in near real time
https://votewatch.wordpress.com/2021/09/06/election-science-institute-model-for-election-oversight/

How to Approach a Manual Recount Statistically,

President of American Statistical Association
https://votewatch.wordpress.com/2021/07/25/how-to-approach-an-election-manually-recount-statistically/

Examining Voting Problems using a Mixed Method Approach,

American Association for Public Opinion Research
https://votewatch.wordpress.com/2012/12/18/examining_voting_problems_mixed_methods_stevenhertzberg/

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US Election Audits & Legislation, Getting Started

APPENDEX - Case Study: Wayne County (Detroit) 2020

Background

Many witnessed the videos of poll challengers being locked out of Detroit’s TCF Center on
November 4, 2020.

Wayne county processed and counted absent voter (AV) ballots at the voter’s assigned precinct or at
an absent voter counting board (AVCB). An AVCB is a precinct that may be established by the
election commission of a city or township for the purpose of processing and counting AV ballots
separately from a precinct. i In the 2020 election, the TCF Center served as the largest AVCB.

In addition to the chaotic election night videos, media reported that “70% of Detroit’s absent voter
counting boards were out of balance.” ii “A precinct is considered “unbalanced” when the number of
ballots cast does not equal the number of voters recorded in that precinct’s poll book.”
Unfortunately, “under Michigan election law, a precinct that is not in ‘balance’ is disqualified from
participating in a recount, and the election results originally reported by the precinct stand as final.” iii

Reviewing the Record iv

On April 21, 2021 the Michigan Secretary of State published an audit of the November 3, 2020
General Election. As one can clearly see by reviewing the record, the issues around this matter are
not simple nor clear cut, and it quickly becomes challenging to design a research agenda that will
identify whether irregularities occurred at the TCF Center that impacted the results of the 2020
Presidential Election.
The Secretary of State’s audit actually embarked upon the task of reviewing the Absent Voter
Counting Board at the TCF Center. They focused on “determining how many absent voter counting
boards were out of balance and could have been reconciled with additional review and identifying
the reasons why counting boards were out of balance.”
“Approximately 174,000 Absent voter ballots were cast in Detroit. Following the county canvass,
95 of 134 AV counting boards were out of balance. During the AV counting board audit, staff were
able to identify 81 additional counting boards that were in balance or explained, so that only a total
of 14 counting boards remained out of balance.
Although 14 AV counting boards remained out of balance at the completion of the audit, some had
more names than ballots and some had more ballots than names. The net number of ballots for the
entire counting board was 21 more names than ballots, out of approximately 174,000 AV votes
cast.”
Hence the “unbalanced” issue can largely be explained based on the above-described audit work.
This may bring up the important question, “do all audits effectively speak to the accuracy of the
election or can audits fail to uncover irregularities and/or areas of concern?” In the case of Wayne
County, could looking at additional aspects of what occurred in the 2020 election reveal different
explanations?

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US Election Audits & Legislation, Getting Started

Research Challenge
With the goal of accuracy in mind, we can proceed to ponder possible other, deeper research
questions that would help confirm election accuracy. To dig deeper, one might:
Focus on the ballots that were processed late-night to determine if:
- The outcome of the Presidential race for these late-night ballots were vastly different than
ballots processed previously.
- Late-night ballots were somehow processed differently than ballots processed previously.
Confirm that the signatures on the AV ballot envelops matched the signatures on the poll books
at the relevant voter’s precinct.

Research Approach

Proposed research would focus on AV ballots arriving and processed at the TCF Center late on
election night, say after 12AM (“late-night AV ballots”). Questions could include:
What are the batch numbers of late-night AV ballots? What specific precincts did these late-
night AV ballots form?
What discrepancies, if any, are found when the signatures from these late-night AV ballot
envelopes are matched against the poll book signatures from the precincts for which they came?
Was the outcome of the Presidential race of late-night AV ballots consistent with other ballots
processed from these same precincts?
What is the quantity of late-night AV ballots that were placed in “problem ballots” boxes by
precinct, and which Presidential candidate did these ballots display? Was the Presidential race
outcome of ballots placed in “problem ballots” boxes the same as the outcome of ballots that
were not placed in “problem ballots” boxes?

Election Records Required v

Copy of Certificates of Election Inspectors; vi
Copy of Poll books from identified precincts;
Copy of Statements of Votes for AV ballots processed and counted at the TCF Center;
Copy of the Wayne County Canvesser Report for AV ballots processed and counted at the TCF
Center;
Copy of Poll Tapes from tabulators at the TCF Center.
See Memo from Michigan Secretary of State regarding requests for election records, dated August
3, 2021 vii

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US Election Audits & Legislation, Getting Started

i
Absent Voter Ballot Election Day Processing Election Officials’ Manual,
Michigan Bureau of Elections, Chapter 8
Updated October 2020
https://www.michigan.gov/documents/sos/VIII_Absent_Voter_County_Boards_265998_7.pdf

ii
Putting Detroit’s vote count errors in context
Yes, 70% of Detroit’s absent voter counting boards were out of balance -- but that amounts to a
small number of actual counting errors, and there’s no sign of fraud.
by Maggie Mcmillin
2 December, Detour Detroit
https://detourdetroiter.com/detroit-vote-count-errors-unbalanced-precincts/

iii
GOP members reverse course, vote to certify Wayne County election results
Clara Hendrickson, Detroit Free Press, Nov 17, 2020
https://www.freep.com/story/news/local/michigan/detroit/2020/11/17/wayne-county-election-certification/6309668002/

iv
Audits of the November 3, 2020 General Election, April 21, 2021
Joceylyn Benson, Secretary of State, Michigan
https://www.michigan.gov/documents/sos/BOE_2020_Post_Election_Audit_Report_04_21_21_723005_7.pdf

v
Manual For Boards Of County Canvassers (Chapter 3, Page 2 of 9)
Michigan Department Of State, Bureau Of Elections, October 2020
https://www.michigan.gov/documents/sos/BCC_Manual_464331_7.pdf

viCertificate of Election Inspectors found in the Poll Book for each AVCB precinct. The
following four questions must be answered:
The number of voters who were issued absentee ballots (according to this Poll Book).
The number of absent voter ballot return envelopes received by the Board.
The number of invalid absent voter ballot return envelopes that the clerk did not deliver to Board (according to this
Poll Book)
The number of absent voters who did not return their absent voter ballot to the clerk (according to this Poll Book).

Absent Voter Ballot Election Day Processing Election Officials’ Manual,

Michigan Bureau of Elections, Chapter 8
https://www.michigan.gov/documents/sos/VIII_Absent_Voter_County_Boards_265998_7.pdf

vii
Memorandum, Access to Election Records and Equipment
Joceylyn Benson, Secretary of State, Michigan
From: Jonathan Brater, Director of Elections
To: Municipal and County Election Official
August 4, 2020

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