Implementing Risk-Limiting Post-Election Audits in California
View/ Open
Author
Hall, Joseph Lorenzo
Stark, Philip B.
Briones, Melvin
Ginnold, Elaine
Oakley, Freddie
Peaden, Martin
Pellerin, Gail
Stanionis, Tom
Webber, Tricia
Metadata
Show full item recordCitation
Hall, Joseph Lorenzo and Miratrix, Luke W. and Stark, Philip B. and Briones, Melvin and Ginnold, Elaine and Oakley, Freddie and Peaden, Martin and Pellerin, Gail and Stanionis, Tom and Webber, Tricia. 2009. Implementing Risk-Limiting Post-Election Audits in California (May 28, 2009). Electronic Voting Technology Workshop/Workshop on Trustworthy Elections 2009 (EVT/WOTE '09).Abstract
Risk-limiting post-election audits limit the chance of certifying an electoral outcome if the outcome is not what a full hand count would show. Building on previous work, we report on pilot risk-limiting audits in four elections during 2008 in three California counties: one during the February 2008 Primary Election in Marin County and three during the November 2008 General Elections in Marin, Santa Cruz and Yolo Counties. We explain what makes an audit risk-limiting and how existing and proposed laws fall short. We discuss the differences among our four pilot audits. We identify challenges to practical, efficient risk-limiting audits and conclude that current approaches are too complex to be used routinely on a large scale. One important logistical bottleneck is the difficulty of exporting data from commercial election management systems in a format amenable to audit calculations. Finally, we propose a bare-bones risk-limiting audit that is less efficient than these pilot audits, but avoids many practical problems.Terms of Use
This article is made available under the terms and conditions applicable to Open Access Policy Articles, as set forth at http://nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:HUL.InstRepos:dash.current.terms-of-use#OAPCitable link to this page
http://nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:HUL.InstRepos:30501586
Collections
- GSE Scholarly Articles [365]
Contact administrator regarding this item (to report mistakes or request changes)