| SECTION [ ] REQUIREMENT FOR RANDOM AUDITS TO ENSURE COMPLIANCE WITH MANDATORY FEDERAL ACCURACY STANDARDS FOR VOTING SYSTEMS |
| (a) |
IN
GENERAL – An amendment to verify the accuracy of equipment used in
elections requiring the Secretary of State to establish and publish
procedures for random selection of equipment and for hand counting
voter verifiable paper ballots; a specified transparent method of
accumulating county totals from precinct results; a post-election audit
of 5% of each type of voting machine and ballot-counting machine used
in the state, randomly selected except that at least one machine of
each type used in each county will be selected; hand-counting the
voter-verifiable paper ballots of the machines selected for the audit;
and additional audits when the error rate of a machine exceeds the
maximum error rate allowed by the Help America Vote Act of 2002. |
| (b) |
PROCEDURES
TO BE ESTABLISHED — No less than one month before the first general
election following the enactment of this bill, the Secretary of State
shall establish and publish |
| (i) |
procedures
to be employed in selecting voting machines and ballot counting
machines for the audits mandated in paragraph (d) of this section that
shall ensure that: |
| a. |
the
selection will be made on an entirely random basis in which all the
voting machines and ballot counting machines used in the election have
an equal chance of being selected, except that |
| b. |
5% of the voting machines and ballot counting machines of each type used in the state will be selected, and |
| c. |
at least one voting machine or one ballot counting machine from each county will be selected, and |
| d. |
if
a county employs more than one type of voting machine or ballot
counting machine in the election, at least one of each type of voting
machine or ballot counting machine will be selected from that county. |
| (ii) |
clear and detailed procedures to be used in hand counting voter verifiable paper ballots. |
| (iii) |
standards for determining what is and what is not considered a vote when hand counting the voter verifiable paper ballots. |
| (c) |
PUBLIC
ANNOUNCEMENT OF INITIAL COUNTY TOTALS – Immediately upon the completion
of the initial count of the votes for each contest in each precinct, |
| (i) |
a
report of the precinct totals including individual totals for each
voting machine and ballot counting machine used in the precinct shall
be signed by poll workers and prominently posted at the precinct, and |
| (ii) |
a copy of this report, signed by poll workers, shall be delivered to the county, and |
| (iii) |
such
precinct reports from all precincts in the county shall be tallied
using a method independent of any central tabulator used to determine
county totals. |
| (iv) |
The
results of the accumulated tally of the precinct reports calculated in
sub-paragraph (c) (iii) shall be compared to the totals calculated by
the central tabulator, if any, and in the case of any inconsistencies
the accumulated tally of the precinct reports shall be considered the
correct initial totals. |
| (v) |
Immediately
upon completion of the process specified in sub-paragraph (c) (iv) ,
the county shall announce the county totals, detailing totals for each
precinct and each voting machine employed in the election, and these
totals shall be considered the initial county totals. |
| (vi) |
If
there were any inconsistencies, it shall be announced publicly and
investigated by the County Clerk. If any inconsistency is determined to
be caused by a software error in the central tabulator, the software
error shall be corrected before the central tabulator is used in
another election. |
| (d) |
PROCESS
FOR CONDUCTING AUDITS – After each general election a mandatory audit
shall be conducted in accordance with the following procedures: |
| (i) |
Not
later than two weeks prior to each general election the Secretary of
State shall publish a list of all voting machines and ballot counting
machines to be used in the election, including those reserved for use
in case of emergency and assign each machine a unique identifying
number to be used in the random selection process described in
paragraph (b) (i). |
| (ii) |
Not
later than 24 hours after the announcement of the initial county totals
as described in sub-paragraph (c) (iii) of this Section, the Secretary
of State shall use the procedure established pursuant to paragraph (b)
to select from the list of voting machines and ballot counting machines
published pursuant to paragraph (d) (i) a list of machines to be
audited using the procedure specified below. |
| (iii) |
For
each selected machine used to count ballots from only one precinct, the
ballots from that precinct will be used for the audit. |
| (iv) |
For
each selected optical scan ballot counting machine used to count
ballots from multiple precincts, precincts counted by that ballot
counting machine shall be selected randomly until the total number of
ballots in the selected precincts equals at least 200. The ballots from
the selected precinct(s) will be used for the audit. |
| (v) |
With
respect to selected voting machines that were employed in early voting
and election day (but not including provisional ballots), hand counts
of the voter verifiable paper ballots counted and/or produced by those
voting machines in accordance with Section ___ of this bill shall be
conducted for all Federal and Statewide contests and the results of
that hand count shall be compared with the initial county totals for
those contests. |
| (vi) |
With
respect to ballot counting machines employed to count absentee and
provisional ballots, hand counts of the ballots counted by those ballot
counting machines shall be conducted not later than 24 hours after the
announcement of the initial totals of such votes, and the results of
that hand count shall be compared with the initial totals. |
| (vii) |
If
during the process of the hand count, marking errors on optical scan
ballots are identified they shall be noted and those ballots shall be
separated and preserved independently. |
| (viii) |
As
soon as practicable after the completion of an audit conducted under
this section the results of the audit and a comparison with the initial
totals shall be announced and published. |
| (ix) |
The
results of the hand count of the voter verifiable paper ballots
conducted under this paragraph shall be considered the true and correct
results. |
| (e) |
ADDITIONAL AUDITS
– Additional Audits shall be conducted if inconsistencies are found
between hand counts and initial county totals as follows: |
| (i) |
If
there are inconsistencies between the hand count of voter verifiable
paper ballots and the initial totals that cannot be attributed to
marking errors identified pursuant to sub- paragraph (c) (vii) and |
| a. |
if the inconsistencies are confirmed by a second hand count, and |
| b. |
if
the inconsistencies yield an error rate greater than the maximum
acceptable error rate allowed by the Help America Vote Act of 2002,
Section 301(a)(5), the voter verifiable paper ballots counted and/or
produced by a second voting machine or vote counting machine of the
same type, selected randomly from the same county shall be hand counted
for all Federal and Statewide contests and the results of the hand
count and the initial totals from that machine shall be compared. or, |
| c. |
in
the case of an optical scan ballot counting machine used to count
ballots from multiple precincts, if the inconsistencies yield an error
rate greater than the acceptable error rate referenced in sub-paragraph
(e) (i) b, the remainder of the ballots counted on that machine shall
be hand counted for all Federal and Statewide contests, and the results
of the hand count shall be compared to the initial totals. |
| d. |
If
inconsistencies are found in the second audit described in
sub-paragraphs (e) (i) b or (e) (i) c that yield an error rate greater
than the acceptable error rate referenced in sub- paragraph (e) (i) b,
the voter verifiable paper ballots counted and/or produced by all
voting machines and ballot counting machines of that type in the county
in which that machine was used shall be hand counted for all Federal
and Statewide contests. |
| e. |
If
in three or more counties, inconsistencies occur that yield error rates
greater than the acceptable error rate referenced in sub-paragraph (i)
b on the same type of voting machine, a hand count of the voter
verifiable paper ballots shall be conducted for all Federal and
Statewide contests on all voting machines of that type in all counties.
|
| (i) |
The results
derived from the hand counts of the voter verifiable paper ballots
conducted under this paragraph shall be considered the true and correct
totals. |
| (ii) |
All
machines found to have an error rate greater than the acceptable error
rate referenced in sub-paragraph (e) (i) b shall be examined and the
malfunction repaired before any of those machines may be used in
another election. |
| (iii) |
All
software errors detected as a result of this audit process shall be
investigated and corrected before any equipment that used that software
in that election is used in another election in the state. A report of
such investigation and correction shall be made public. |
