Post Election Vote Auditing

Fritz Scheuren

University of Chicago

Murphy’s Corollary

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

Outline of Remarks

• Systems Thinking

• Sample Vote Verification

• Forensic Statistical Additions

• Exit Polls

• Better Together

Systems Thinking• Appreciation of Complexity• No Single System Owner• Political Party Roles• Media Roles• Voters’ Trust and

Participation

Proactive Response Needed

Benchmarking and Sharing What Works

Audited Votesand Voter

Surveys

Ishikawa (Fishbone) Diagram

TrustworthyVoting System

TestedBallot

Trained Pollworker

CertifiedEquipment

SecuredTabulationEducated

Voter

VerifiedIdentity

Sample Vote Verification

• Key to Accountability

• Transparency and Randomness

• Rules of Evidence (Florida?)

• Build A Body of Practice

Forensic Statistical Additions?

• Exploring Official Results for anomalies

• Confirming Outliers and Inliers• Linking Present to Past Patterns• Developing Lessons Learned

Data Bases, Persisting

Ohio Scatterplot of Kerry Difference Between Actual and Predicted Vs. The Total

(Trending 84 - 04)

-60,000

-40,000

-20,000

0

20,000

40,000

60,000

0 200000 400000 600000 800000

Total Vote of Two Parties

Dif

fere

nce Electronic

Punchcard

Scan

Cuyahoga

Franklin

Hamilton

Cuyahoga Scatterplot of Kerry Difference Between Actual and Predicted Vs. the Total

(Grouping Precincts 00 - 04)

-300

-200

-100

0

100

200

300

0 300 600 900 1200

Total Votes of Two Parties

Dif

fere

nce

Exit Polls• Warren Mitofsky• Not a Substitute for Sample

Audits• A Weak Fitness for Use Standard• Badly Misunderstood, Redirect

and Replace

0.00 0.20 0.40 0.60 0.80

Bush Vote Proportion In 2000

0.00

0.20

0.40

0.60

0.80

Bu

sh V

ote

Pro

po

rtio

n In

200

4

Whether the exit poll

overstated Bush or Kerry

Exit Poll Overstated Bush

Exit Poll Overstated Kerry

Bush Vote Proportion In 2000 and 2004 For the Ohio Sample Precincts

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

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

-0.30 -0.20 -0.10 0.00 0.10 0.20

Difference Between Actual and Exit Poll 2004 Bush Vote Proportion

-0.10

-0.05

0.00

0.05

0.10

0.15

Dif

fere

nce

Bet

wee

n 2

004

and

200

0 B

ush

Vo

te

Pro

po

rtio

nBush Vote Proportion Comparison For The Ohio Sample Precincts

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

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

National Election Scorecard

• National Voter (Customer) Survey

• Build on 2006 Ohio Proof of Concept

• Put “Horror Stories” in Perspective

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.

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

Many ThanksScheuren@aol.com