Post Election Vote Auditing

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Post Election Vote Auditing

• Fritz Scheuren
• University of Chicago

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Murphys Corollary

• If you did not check it, then it did go wrong!

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Outline of Remarks

• Systems Thinking
• Sample Vote Verification
• Forensic Statistical Additions
• Exit Polls
• Better Together

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Systems Thinking

• Appreciation of Complexity
• No Single System Owner
• Political Party Roles
• Media Roles
• Voters Trust and Participation

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Proactive Response Needed

• Benchmarking and Sharing What Works

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Audited Votes and Voter Surveys
Ishikawa (Fishbone) Diagram
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Sample Vote Verification

• Key to Accountability
• Transparency and Randomness
• Rules of Evidence (Florida?)
• Build A Body of Practice

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Forensic Statistical Additions?

• Exploring Official Results for anomalies
• Confirming Outliers and Inliers
• Linking Present to Past Patterns
• Developing Lessons Learned Data Bases, Persisting

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Ohio Scatterplot of Kerry Difference Between
Actual and Predicted Vs. The Total (Trending 84
- 04)
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Cuyahoga Scatterplot of Kerry Difference Between
Actual and Predicted Vs. the Total (Grouping
Precincts 00 - 04)
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Exit Polls

• Warren Mitofsky
• Not a Substitute for Sample Audits
• A Weak Fitness for Use Standard
• Badly Misunderstood, Redirect and Replace

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More on Refusal Versus Fraud Alternative 2000
v. 2004

• Are Precincts with Gaps Different?
• Data Does not Support this!
• Actual Results Are Similar not Different
• Scatterplot Shows Rough Similarity
• Distributions Virtually Identical
• Mitofsky Bias in Refusals Hypothesis Supported
  Instead

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Still More on Predictive Value of Exit Poll v.
Actual Results

• Another Look at Gap over time
• 2004 Exit Poll v. 2004 Actual Gap
• Versus 2000-2004 Change
• Fraud Hypothesis would Predict
• Gap is Correlated to Change
• Correlation only 0.03 However

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Better Together

• Cooperation Already High Among Election Officials
• Bring in Skilled Outsiders, Statisticians.
  Computer Specialists, , As You Have
• Include and Inform Critics
• Make Accountability Evident

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Media and Marketing

• Approach Media Ahead of Time
• Seize this Timely Moment
• Stress New Tools, Learning Style
• Conduct Demonstration Sample Audits and Get the
  Word Out

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National Election Scorecard

• National Voter (Customer) Survey
• Build on 2006 Ohio Proof of Concept
• Put Horror Stories in Perspective

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Fully Auditable Election

• Prepare prior data ahead of time, so analysis can
  be real-time
• Continue to use Exit Polls but adjusting for the
  bias in them, if possible.

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More Examples

• Create and train election officials in new
  process recording and Sample Vote Verification
  Standards
• Make sure software is fully tested and as close
  to tamper proof as possible

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Many Thanks

• Scheuren_at_aol.com