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31 July 2022
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Trust
Your Election Results?
Summary
Election officials don't check many
results. Candidates and the public can monitor the election process and check results:
A. Get electronic copies of all ballots, by public record
requests (more)
·
Election machines already
scan and make anonymous ballot images.
·
Ask election
officials to preserve these
ballot images
·
File public record
request for ballot images from a recent election.
B. Print and count these images of ballots, or get programmers
to count them, to check official results. (more)
·
Report any
discrepancies. If there's an argument, courts decide.
·
This one step will
catch most errors in election results, caused by mistakes, dishonesty, or
foreigners.
·
This step also
shows each candidate who else their voters chose, leading to alliances in the
next campaign.
C. To be sure copies are reliable, compare a good sample of
paper ballots to the electronic copies. (more)
·
If copies aren't
right, re-scan ballots with better scanners, release again, check again.
·
If ballots are
missing, so you can't check, it's a management failure. Investigate and fix
management.
A. When many contests
are on the ballot, machine-counting[1]
is common, for accuracy and speed. Counting machines are computers. Even when
they are offline, staff and contractors hand-carry annual updates to every
machine, which can introduce errors and hacks, so their results need to be
checked.
1.
Officials
do very limited
checks: only a few contests, or
omitting many ballots.[2]
You can read details for your state.[3]
2.
The
most powerful step in election security is getting copies of ballots to count
independently. Ballots are anonymous, so they cannot be tied to particular voters.
3.
Getting
copies depends on good relations with election staff, and/or requesting copies
of the ballots or the electronic images under the relevant state Open Records
Law or Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). Many states forbid copying ballots,
but only a few forbid copying the electronic images, as shown on the yellow,
black and green map above. A 2007 survey by the National Association of
Secretaries of State identified policies then.[4]
Lawyers regularly analyze each state's Open Records or FOIA Law for the
Reporters' Committee for Freedom of the Press. [5]
There have also been some court decisions.[6] All these are summarized in the yellow, black
and green map at the top of the page.
4.
In
states which have not had court decisions, it is important to ask lawyers for
the best strategy. In the states which do not release ballot images, you may
need a new state law.
5.
Tallying ballots independently of election
machines has led to new results and insights in Michigan,
Pennsylvania, California, and Florida.
6.
Copies can be electronic or paper.
Election machines make electronic copies of ballots, which are inexpensive to
copy so candidates and the public can check results. If a jurisdiction does not
save its electronic copies, you can ask officials and candidates to
start doing this.
7.
Audit
Elections USA lists which jurisdictions use vote-counting machines which can
make electronic images of the ballots.[7]
These are mapped in the green and gray
map here.
8.
It
is also possible to scan ballots, especially in smaller jurisdictions with
modest numbers of ballots. Scanners are inexpensive, and can handle uncommon
formats used in some jurisdictions.[8]
Various laws have been interpreted to allow scanning of ballots.[9]
9.
When
election machines create copies in unreadable proprietary formats, you can
still request copies, then find another machine which can read them.
10.
Sample
FOIA letters[10]
are available. Requests can be sent directly or through a service like FoiaMachine,
free, or MuckRock, $20 for up to 4 requests, which submits,
follows up, and posts results online. Muckrock also
shows the cumulative success rates of requests to each jurisdiction.[11]
States usually charge copying costs, which can be low for electronic copies.
11.
States
vary in how long they store local
election ballots. Federal law[12]
requires that when any federal
official is on the ballot, all ballots and other records must be kept for 22
months after each primary, general and special election.
12.
An
alternative of trying to check vote counting software directly is usually
stopped by trade secrets laws.[13]
The alternative of using national exit polls is stopped by adjustments they do
to match official results.[14]
Local groups have tried this approach.[15]
Exit polls do try to include mailed ballots as well as polling places.[16]
13.
Many
states have groups working for
better elections, which may help you.
B. Ballot images are
easy to copy to thumb drives or portable hard drives, depending on file size.
People can print and hand-count,[17]
or electronically count these scans to check official counts. Citizens
Oversight, Humboldt County CA and FreeandFair offer
software to count ballot images.[18]
1.
The
election staff or first recipients of the files need to calculate a digital
signature or hash value to identify true copies of the scan. The hash value is
a several-digit number, calculated from the ballot images, so any change in the
file gives a different hash value, revealing that the file is not the same as
the original. The hash value needs to be short enough to store and compare on
paper, so it does not depend on computer storage, which can fail.
2.
Humboldt
County, CA, has scanned and counted ballots with open source software since
2008, several days after each election. Humboldt releases the ballot images
with a digital signature or "hash value" for each file of ballot
images.[19]
3.
There
are several ways independent counts can differ from official counts and each
other. Software has adjustable tolerances for partly filled ovals next to
candidate names, and even for finding the ovals on the page.[20]
It can miss voters who marked an X or check-mark. If one set of software just
checks for black ovals, it will miss votes where the voter circled the name
instead, or wrote it in the write-in box. When circling or writing in counts as
a vote under local and state law, the differences matter in close elections.[21]
Advanced software can also look for crossed-out votes where voters changed
their minds, and their intent is clear.
4.
Many
jurisdictions use Ballot Marking Devices, a touchscreen where voters select
choices, and the computer prints the choices on paper to put in the ballot box.
The goal is to avoid letting voters mark ambiguous circles and X's, and to
avoid the high costs and potential errors of commercially pre-printing blank
ballots in multiple languages. The paper usually has a bar code or QR code
summarizing the voter's choices, which is counted on election night. Errors in
the code will be found if someone counts the printed names. Any error in the
printed names is supposed to be found by each voter, but is caught only 7% of the
time on a ballot with multiple contests.
5.
Checking
copies also lets people see if there are black or white lines or pale areas on
the ballots caused by faulty scanning.[22]
Finding such problems may convince officials to conduct step C, or convince a
court to order new better scans.
6.
Legal
structure stays the same, where county and city clerks and recorders manage the
election, ballots and scanned images. People will report discrepancies to
officials or courts as needed.
7.
Ballot
images need to become a standard part of campaigns, to verify counts and show
the combinations of candidates which voters choose, helping design alliances
for later campaigns.
8.
An
optional, sophisticated, step is to analyze the patterns of pixels in the
images to detect tampering. If an error or hack shifts black ovals from one
candidate to another, there could be discontinuities at the edges of the area
shifted. Wisconsin's IT experts said "manipulation would be difficult;
might be easy to detect, and may even be impossible."[23]
9.
Steps
A and B will catch most errors and are useful even if you cannot do step C. Do
not let the perfect be the enemy of good first steps. Without step C, outsiders
can still check whether totals are correct. A and B force election thieves into
a smaller space, where whistleblowers may catch them. Step C is harder and is
only needed for sophisticated hacks in the images, moving black-marked ovals
from one candidate to another, and to catch staff errors in reconstructing
damaged ballots.[24]
Steps A and B are like locking your doors and windows. Step C is like stepping
up to a home alarm system.
C. Comparing ballot
images to the corresponding original ballots is a test of whether the scans and
reconstructed[25]
ballots were accurate. If the public cannot get comparisons with paper ballots,
another approach is deep forensic analysis of the electronic images. True scans
have slight imperfections from dirt, shadows and variation in how humans mark
ballots. Accidental or purposeful moving of parts of the image to change votes
can leave subtle edges.
Extent of checking
1.
The
number of ballots to check depends on budget, time, space, and how many staff
can be well-supervised.[26]
Even a small sample of 200-500 ballots is enough to catch common errors.
Suppose election machines report a victory margin of 2% (winner had 51% and
loser had 49%). This result could be a mistake, if 1% or more of the scans were
wrong. A random sample of 200 to 500 ballots has an 87% to 99% chance of
finding at least one of those faulty scans,[27]
so the crook or the faulty machine would be found out.
2.
Ideally
checking would be done publicly by election staff right after each batch of
ballots is scanned. For ballots scanned at precincts, a sample of each precinct
can be compared to the images as soon as the ballot box comes back to the
office. Both approaches identify faulty scanners immediately, so the ballots
can be re-scanned and any preceding batches from that scanner can be
double-checked.
3.
Immediate
re-scans of faulty batches fix multi-feeds and streaks from dirty sensors. If
the cause is not so obvious, and affects two or more batches, all batches need
to be re-scanned, to remove uncaught random errors in the other batches.
2-batch cutoff can be changed, but in a sample of 500 comparisons it gives 96% chance of catching errors
affecting 1% of ballots and 70%
chance for errors affecting 0.5% of ballots.
4.
This
small sample size is only reliable if you take seriously even two
discrepancies, and either re-scan all ballots, or check a much bigger sample to
search for more errors. Re-scanning is cheaper. Busy staff and candidates may
want to ignore[28]
two lone discrepancies, but expecting to find more discrepancies in a small
sample is unrealistic. Bugs in the scans (darkening a black oval to select one
candidate rather than another), should never
happen, and finding two means the entire scanned file is unreliable. In the
example above, where 1% of scans were faulty, a sample of 200 has only 33%[29]
chance of finding 3 or more faulty scans. A sample of 500 is needed to get 88%
chance of finding 3 or more faulty scans. If staff want to wait for 3 flawed
scans before taking action, they need to examine at least 500 ballot images.
5.
In
jurisdictions with only a few hundred ballots, it is feasible and reassuring to
check them all.
6.
When
people suspect errors in one area or type of ballot, these need to be sampled
more heavily, or at 100%.
7.
When
errors are found, the ballots need to be re-scanned on different scanners.
These can be scanners from the same election vendor, or commercial
off-the-shelf scanners such as local offices already own. Then new files can be
released to the public, and a new random sample can be selected and checked
against the new ballot images.
8.
This
approach is a variation of a "Risk-Limiting Audit" (RLA).[30]
When a traditional Risk-Limiting Audit finds a problem, it expands the hand
count, ultimately up to 100%. Rescanning gives the same assurance that results
match the original ballots, while avoiding the cost and delay of 100% hand
counts. Maryland rejected RLAs because of the unpredictable cost of hand counts,[31]
and they count scans instead, though they skip step C. Another weakness of
traditional Risk-Limiting Audits is that they check only one or two contests,
to minimize hand counts. Taking a little time to get verified scans makes it
easy to check all contests. Finally, RLA requires a secure tally of verified
electronic records, and traditionally the public has no evidence this tally is
secure.[32]
Releasing ballot images lets the public check the tally.
Procedures
9.
Original
ballots need to be kept in the same order they went through the scanner, to
find the corresponding images. The alternative of printing numbers on ballots
as they are scanned is touchy, since one does not want ink in the scanner which
could be hacked to mark extra votes. Printing numbers can be safe if the only
ink color in the scanner is one which voters don't use, like yellow or orange.
10.
Ballots
need to be compared immediately after random numbers are chosen, so there is no
time for election thieves to change the stored originals which have been
chosen. Even bringing the chosen ballots from a large storage room must be fast
so the public knows there was no time for insiders to change them.
11.
Numbers
to identify ballots (3rd, 82nd, 209th, etc.)
need to be truly unpredictable. If there is any chance of pre-selecting them,
outsiders may suspect insiders of changing few selected ballots to match the
already-released images.
12.
Images
need to be released before selecting the random numbers, so outsiders know that
insiders could not fix just the few selected images to match stored ballots.
13.
It
is important for all supporters of losing candidates to see the audit has no
holes, even after bitter campaigns.
14.
When
staff have reconstructed ballots after originals were torn or otherwise too
damaged to be scanned,[33]
comparisons need to be done with the original ballots, not the reconstructed
ones.
15.
If
there are doubts about any precinct or type of ballot, like reconstructed ones,
it needs to be covered more thoroughly in the checking.
16.
If
the random comparison finds any mismatch between ballots and images, people
need to decide if it could affect election results. Sporadic light ink may not
matter, if it is always dark enough to read. Black or white lines through
candidate selections matter, since they can hide voters' marks.
17.
Comparisons
need to be visible to the public, or they create little trust. The public can
bring their own copies of the released image files. The hard part is letting
them see the paper ballots. It is tempting to project these on a computer
monitor, but if a savvy hacker has changed ballot images, she can hack a
computer projection of paper ballots to match. An opaque projector which uses
light and lenses rather than software would be trusted more.
18.
All
scanning and random comparisons need to be done as soon as possible after the
election, ideally by the next day, since physically stored ballots are very
much at risk of being changed. If storage seals are broken, few will have
confidence that the ballots are still trustworthy. In hotly contested
elections, partisans have guarded storage sites. For example in Bush v. Gore
2000, Republicans guarded storage in Florida[34]
and asked the state police to guard storage in New Mexico.[35]
19.
American
governments spend $7 trillion per year.[36]
We choose these governments with an average of 140 million ballots per year, so
an average ballot controls $50,000, half at federal level, half in state and
local governments. Think of each ballot as worth $50,000. Treat and store boxes
of ballots accordingly.
20.
A
word about precision. Poll workers report the number of voters, which should
closely match the number of ballots in each precinct. A discrepancy of 3-4
ballots can happen in a busy precinct. I've been a poll worker. Voters are
coming and going, getting regular ballots, provisional ballots, etc. and asking
questions. However a discrepancy of 20-200 ballots needs an outside
investigation, like any management failure or possible crime. If officials lose
ballots or records, voters and law enforcement need to insist on better
practices and new officials before the next election.
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