Audits
Every TrustVoting article filed under Audits.
15 articles
Why the margin of error has to be smaller than the margin of victory
Austria's 2016 presidential election was annulled not because fraud was proven, but because 77,000 mishandled ballots…
Small, boring errors decide big elections more often than fraud does
In three Finnish towns in 2008, 232 people voted and their votes were simply never saved — no fraud, no hack, just a…
When a 'recount' just re-reads the same barcode
Georgia counted five million ballots by hand and called it a recount — but if the scanner reads a QR code you can't…
What separates a real audit from a rubber stamp
Every election gets an "audit." Almost none of them can actually change a result — and the word is doing a lot of work…
Every close election is a stress test your voting system probably fails
A fold in a ballot. Dust on a lens. No fraud, no malware — and still hundreds of miscounted votes in a race decided by…
Chain of custody: the boring paperwork that decides if you can trust an election
An election was annulled across an entire country — not because anyone cheated, but because nobody could prove they…
Federal auditors warned the voting-security safeguards weren't finished. In 2005.
In 2005, federal auditors told Congress the safeguards meant to secure your electronic vote still didn't fully exist —…
A folding machine, some dust, and hundreds of miscounted votes — no fraud required
A folding machine left a crease in the wrong place, dust settled on a lens, and hundreds of validly cast votes quietly…
232 votes vanished into a computer, and a court ordered a whole new election
A court ordered a whole new election — not because anyone proved fraud, but because 232 voters pressed "confirm" and…
They found no fraud. They re-ran the election anyway.
Austria's highest court threw out a presidential election in 2016 — not because anyone cheated, but because no one…
Correction fluid decided an election — until the courts noticed
A small bottle of white correction fluid altered enough tally sheets to void an entire presidential election — and the…
Antrim County was caught because it was absurd. What about the errors that aren't?
Antrim County's error got caught because it was laughably obvious. The elections that should terrify you are the ones…
"We counted it by hand" is a reassurance, not a proof
Georgia's historic hand count of 5 million ballots is held up as proof elections work — but the same method was off by…
Why a paper trail isn't enough on its own
A Princeton professor plugged a real voting machine into his lab bench in 2006 and proved it could steal an election…
What is a risk-limiting audit, and why does it matter?
In a race decided by 369 votes, officials had nothing independent to recount — because the machines were paperless.…