Election Auditing Resources

If you are an ASA member interested in working on election issues, contact the ASA’s director of science policy.

Election Auditing-General

ASA Actions and News

• ASA Endorses Post-Election Audits Principles
• ASA writes Senator Wyden (D-OR) supporting his bill requiring ASA-endorsed risk-limiting audits
• Presidential Commission on Election Administration’s report endorses risk-limiting audits (PDF download; see Page 66)
• ASA sends letter (PDF download) supporting Philip Stark et al. white paper, “Risk-Limiting Post-Election Audits: Why and How,” (PDF download) and suggests election officials and legislators follow the paper’s guidance in implementing risk-limiting audits
• Both chambers of California’s legislature unanimously approved, and the governor signed, Assembly Bill (AB) 2023 to implement a postcanvass risk-limiting audit program
• ASA Board endorses the use of risk-limiting audits (PDF download); press release
• Colorado Governor Bill Ritter signed into law House Bill 09-1335 (PDF download), mandating Colorado counties use risk-limiting audits
• ASA Board endorses election auditing principles (PDF download); press release
• ASA Board issues position on electoral integrity; news release

Other Resources

• ElectionAudits.org has information about and videos from the fall 2007 election auditing summit in Minneapolis, Minnesota
• Philip Stark’s election auditing page

Articles About Auditing and Election-Related Topics

• “Florida 2006: Can Statistics Tell Us Who Won Congressional District-13?” (PDF download), by Arlene Ash and John Lamperti
• "Statistics Can Help Ensure Accurate Elections” (PDF download), by David Marker, John Gardenier, and Arlene Ash
• “Roles for Statisticians in Elections” (PDF download), by John Gardenier
• “Statistics Students Learn Every Vote Counts,” by Mary Gray
• “The Statistical Role in Voter Identification (ID) Laws” (PDF download), by David Marker
• “Elections 2012: Suppressing Fraud or Suppressing the Vote?,” by Arlene Ash and Joel Middleton
• “Leave Election Integrity to Chance,” by Philip Stark

Election Auditing-Methods

Variable Sample-Size Audits

• “Implementing Risk-Limiting Post-Election Audits in California” (PDF download), by Joseph Lorenzo Hall, Luke W. Miratrix, Philip B. Stark, Melvin Briones, Elaine Ginnold, Freddie Oakley, Martin Peaden, Gail Pellerin, Tom Stanionis, and Tricia Webber
• “A Simple Rule of Thumb for Election Audit Size Determination” (PDF download), by Ronald Rivest
• “On Estimating the Size and Confidence of a Statistical Audit” (PDF download), by Javed A. Aslam, Raluca A. Popa, and Ronald L. Rivest
• “On Auditing Elections When Precincts Have Different Sizes” (PDF download), by Javed A. Aslam, Raluca A. Popa, and Ronald L. Rivest
• “Percentage-Based versus Statistical-Power-Based Vote Tabulation Audits” (PDF download), by John McCarthy, Howard Stanislevic, Mark Lindeman, Arlene Ash, Vittorio Addona, and Mary Batcher; longer version: “Percentage-Based versus SAFE Vote Tabulation Auditing: A Graphic Comparison” (PDF download)
• “A Sharper Discrepancy Measure for Post-Election Audits” (PDF download), by Philip Stark
• “Election Audits by Sampling with Probability Proportional to an Error Bound: Dealing with Discrepancies” (PDF download), by Philip Stark
• Risk-Limiting Post-Election Audits, a seminar by Philip Stark at Kansas State Department of Statistics

Fixed-Percentage Audits

• Procedures for California’s 1% Manual Tally (PDF download), by Joseph Hall
• Improving the Security, Transparency, and Efficiency of California’s 1% Manual Tally Procedures (PDF download), by Joseph Hall
• NY Election Audits: Is Three Percent Enough? (PDF download), Howard Stanislevic

Method-General

Report and Analysis of the 2006 Post-Election Audit of Minnesota’s Voting Systems (PDF download), by Citizens for Election Integrity Minnesota