EIIElection Integrity Index

No section in the FTS-surfaced candidates satisfies this criterion. Best signal: This section addresses criminal history record checks for county board of elections employees. It does not discuss downloadable public packages, certificates, device records, result signatures, or any public verification artifacts related to election results or processes.

No matching sections in corpus.

North Carolina law explicitly requires that all certified voting systems must generate a paper ballot as a backup means of counting votes. Additionally, for DRE systems specifically, the statute mandates that the paper ballot be viewable by the voter before the vote is cast electronically, allowing the voter to verify the record. This satisfies the requirement for a voter-verifiable paper trail.

“The State Board may certify voting systems only if they meet the requirements set forth in this section and only if they generate a paper ballot which provides a backup means of counting the vote that the voter casts.”

No section in the FTS-surfaced candidates satisfies this criterion. Best signal: This section addresses the collection and use of electronic mail addresses for military-overseas voters and election communications. It contains no provisions regarding citizen re-tallying rights, access to precinct data, or verification procedures that would enable any citizen to independently re-tally election results from published data.

No section in the FTS-surfaced candidates satisfies this criterion. Best signal: This section addresses the issuance of certificates of election by the county board chairman after municipal elections have been determined. It contains no provisions regarding hardware standards, tamper-evident seals, logging, or tamper-responsive systems. The statute is procedurally focused on document issuance and does not engage with the hardware security or custody standards evaluated by this criterion.

No section in the FTS-surfaced candidates satisfies this criterion. Best signal: This section defines terminology related to political advertisements and campaign finance disclosures (e.g., 'Advertisement,' 'Candidate,' 'Television,' 'Radio'). It is entirely unrelated to vote-casting equipment, network isolation, or any technical specifications for election machinery. The criterion asks about connectivity prohibitions on voting devices, which is not addressed in this definitional section.

The statute requires sealing and delivery of challenged ballots but does not explicitly mandate comprehensive chain-of-custody documentation or require that such documentation be publicly available. It specifies physical procedures (sealing, delivery) but does not address documentation requirements or public access provisions.

“The chief judge shall retain all such envelopes in an envelope provided by the county board of elections, which he shall seal immediately after the polls close, and deliver to the board chairman at the canvass.”

No matching sections in corpus.

The section addresses post-election audits and requires reporting after an audit is conducted, but it does not mandate that audits occur for every election. It describes procedural requirements for audits that are undertaken, not a legal requirement that audits must be performed in the first place.

The statute mandates hand-to-eye recounts (manual visual inspection) for certain ballot items when margin thresholds are met, which corresponds to a fixed-percentage hand recount method. However, this is a recount triggered by candidate demand within narrow margins, not a comprehensive post-election audit system. The audit method is limited in scope and does not encompass risk-limiting audits or comparison audits.

“Hand-to-eye recounts shall also be ordered as provided by G.S. 163-182.7 A.”

No section in the FTS-surfaced candidates satisfies this criterion. Best signal: This section addresses recounts and recount procedures triggered by candidate demands or board discretion, not additional audits triggered by close margins or sworn challenges. Recounts are a separate post-election process from audits. The section does not establish audit triggers beyond mandatory recounts.

No section in the FTS-surfaced candidates satisfies this criterion. Best signal: This section addresses the procedure for filling vacancies in state executive offices through gubernatorial appointment and election. It contains no provisions regarding post-election audits, observer access, media participation, or citizen observation of any audit process. The section is entirely focused on vacancy succession and is unrelated to the audit criterion.

No section in the FTS-surfaced candidates satisfies this criterion. Best signal: This section addresses criminal penalties, reporting duties, and prosecution procedures for campaign finance violations under North Carolina election law. It does not address post-election audits or whether audit results are binding on certified election results. The section is entirely outside the scope of the criterion.

The statute requires comprehensive source code and documentation to be escrowed with an independent escrow agent approved by the State Board of Elections, making it accessible to a certifying authority rather than remaining vendor-only. However, the statute does not explicitly authorize public disclosure, academic access under NDA, or full public accessibility—only that the state board can access escrowed materials, which aligns with score 2 (certifying authority only).

“The vendor shall place in escrow with an independent escrow agent approved by the State Board of Elections all software that is relevant to functionality, setup, configuration, and operation of the voting system, including, but not limited to, a complete copy of the source and executable code, build scripts, object libraries, application program interfaces, and complete documentation of all aspects of the system”

No section in the FTS-surfaced candidates satisfies this criterion. Best signal: This section concerns the procedural requirements for requesting absentee ballots in North Carolina, including form creation, voter registration confirmation, and delivery methods. It contains no provisions whatsoever related to software, binary builds, source code, reproducibility, or any technical/computational systems. The criterion asks about reproducible builds for production binaries, which is entirely outside the scope of this election administration statute.

No matching sections in corpus.

No section in the FTS-surfaced candidates satisfies this criterion. Best signal: Section 163-182 provides definitions of election-related terms (abstract, certificate of election, composite abstract, protest) but does not address requirements for publishing ballot contests, layouts, or tabulation rules before polls open. The section is definitional in nature and does not establish any procedural requirements related to pre-election publication or signing of ballot materials.

No section in the FTS-surfaced candidates satisfies this criterion. Best signal: This section requires a post-election audit report to be submitted to legislative committees but does not address verification of running binaries or software code. The statute concerns audit reporting procedures, not binary verification or source code attestation.

The statute explicitly grants political party chairs the right to designate observers at voting places, with detailed procedural mechanisms for their appointment, placement, and access to voting records. Observers are permitted to observe the voting process, take notes, and receive voter lists multiple times throughout election day, providing substantial procedural access to the electoral process.

“The chair of each political party in the county shall have the right to designate two observers to attend each voting place at each primary and election”

No section in the FTS-surfaced candidates satisfies this criterion. Best signal: Section 163-22 addresses the powers and duties of the State Board of Elections regarding supervision, rules, ballot preparation, and investigation of elections. It contains no provisions addressing international observer access, OSCE/EU/IFES observer admission, or observer rights of any kind.

No section in the FTS-surfaced candidates satisfies this criterion. Best signal: This section provides definitions for terms used in election law (abstract, certificate of election, composite abstract, protest) but does not establish any timeline or requirement for publishing precinct-level results. It is a definitional section without substantive requirements regarding result publication speed.

No section in the FTS-surfaced candidates satisfies this criterion. Best signal: This section requires detailed accounting and reporting of contributions and expenditures by political treasurers, with audit trails for certain payments. However, it does not establish a public, signed, append-only election event log. The statute addresses internal record-keeping and State Board inspection procedures, not a public-facing immutable event log of election activities.

The statute establishes a certification process for multiple voting systems and permits any certified system to be used in elections without restricting the number of vendors. The language stating certified systems 'shall be valid in any election' without limitation to a single vendor supports the operation of multiple certified vendors simultaneously.

“Those certified voting systems shall be valid in any election held in the State or in any county, municipality, or other electoral district in the State.”

The statute requires the State Board to make counting procedures and standards available to the public, which addresses transparency and documentation. However, the section does not explicitly establish that standards are 'open' in the sense of being based on open protocols that allow independent development or implementation. The requirement to publish in the North Carolina Register and make copies available is procedural transparency, not necessarily vendor independence or open protocol standards in the technical sense required by the criterion.

“Copies of those procedures and standards shall be made available to the public upon request or otherwise by the State Board.”

No section in the FTS-surfaced candidates satisfies this criterion. Best signal: Section 163-19 establishes the State Board of Elections' composition, appointment procedures, term limits, oath requirements, and eligibility restrictions for board members. It does not address vendor contracts, contract duration, or any restrictions on election-related vendor agreements. The section is entirely focused on the governance structure and member qualifications of the state election board, not vendor management or procurement policies.

The statute clearly mandates that vendors contracting to provide voting systems in North Carolina must place source code and related software in escrow with an independent escrow agent approved by the State Board of Elections. This is a binding contractual requirement enforced by felony and civil penalties, establishing source-code escrow as a condition of providing voting systems in the state.

“Every vendor that has a contract to provide a voting system in North Carolina shall do all of the following: The vendor shall place in escrow with an independent escrow agent approved by the State Board of Elections all software that is relevant to functionality, setup, configuration, and operation of the voting system, including, but not limited to, a complete copy of the source and executable code”

The section mandates physical private spaces for voters to mark ballots in secrecy, which addresses the infrastructure for ballot secrecy. However, it does not establish legal guarantees or enforcement mechanisms for voter–ballot unlinkability (preventing the linkage of specific votes to specific voters), which is the core requirement of the criterion. The provision ensures privacy during marking but does not guarantee that ballots remain unlinked to voter identity through the entire electoral process.

“A sufficient number of private spaces for all voters to mark their official ballots in secrecy”

This section addresses accessibility for disabled voters but only through reassignment to accessible polling places upon request, not through a mandate that every polling place meet accessibility standards. It does not require comprehensive accessibility standards at all locations or address specific accessibility dimensions like vision, motor, or language access.

“The State Board of Elections shall promulgate rules to assure that any disabled or elderly voter assigned to an inaccessible polling place, upon advance request of such voter, will be assigned to an accessible polling place.”

No section in the FTS-surfaced candidates satisfies this criterion. Best signal: This section addresses the use of school and public buildings for political party meetings and conventions, not the establishment of polling places or requirements for polling-place density. It does not impose any legal floor or minimum standard for the number of polling places per voters or per geographic area.