Citizens Audit Report:
Watchdog Group Finds Faults with Post-Election Audit
Independent Observation and Analysis of Connecticut’s 2019 Post-Election Audit
From the Press Release:
Again, the Secretary of the State’s Office failed to require local officials to conduct audits to satisfy the spirit of the law. As a result, voters cannot have confidence in the accuracy of election results.
The public and candidates expect, and the Secretary of the State should require, that local election officials organize audits and produce accurate, complete audit reports. The public should expect the Secretary of the State’s Office to take the lead in ensuring that each audit report is complete:
- 41% of official audit reports from registrars were incomplete.
- Weaknesses in ballot chain-of-custody and security procedures remain. Ballot security is necessary to assure ballots were not tampered with between the election and the municipal audit counting sessions.
- Use of electronic audits that are not publicly verifiable.
Officials made strides in the following areas:
- Officials demonstrated strides toward a publicly verifiable Machine-Assisted Post-Election Audit.
- Only two districts attributed differences in vote and ballot counts to Human Error. Fewer large differences were reported, increasing our confidence in officials and scanners.
“With National concerns with elections risks the public deserves better audits. Audits that provide justified credibility in our elections.”, said Luther Weeks, Executive Director of the Citizen Audit, adding “With a small additional investment on the UConn Audit Station and its associated procedures, which have been developed with public funds.”
<Press Release .pdf> <Full Report pdf> <Detail data/municipal reports>
