Goal: Promote Transparent, Reliable, Publicly Verifiable Elections

Leadership

Organization’s Objective

"To ensure the integrity of any election outcome, it is essential to be able to prove the accuracy of the vote count. For this, at minimum two key components are needed: voter-verified paper ballots, and audits to check the tallies for accuracy. Although 3/4 of the states already have passed rules requiring voter-verified paper ballots (VVPB) or have purchased VVPB equipment (http://verifiedvoting.org) , only 1/4 of the states are currently doing audits (http://verifiedvoting.org/audits) . In addition to pushing for VVPB nationwide, we're seeking to ensure that states which CAN audit, DO audit, and in the most effective way.
A post-election ""audit"" means hand counting a portion of the VVPB and comparing the tallies to the electronic tallies to ensure the count is correct. It is not a recount, done occasionally to ascertain a specific contest's outcome, but instead a check on the accuracy of the vote tally overall. Audits must be done every time. Without audits, VVPB cannot safeguard our elections. Audits must be done at the right time (after initial count is done, before election is ""certified"") and in the right way (precincts must be randomly selected, a sufficient sample must be counted, process must be publicly observable, etc.) to be effective. Some states, (e.g. Florida), are not counting enough, nor are they getting it done in time."