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Election Audits Should Be Required in Every State After Every Election

Posted on Thursday, July 7, 2022
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by Outside Contributor
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40 Comments
Election

OPINION: Financial audits are standard practice in the business world. Election audits also should be standard practice in every state after every election. Audits would determine whether the election was administered honestly, fairly, accurately and in compliance with all applicable laws and regulations.

Yet audits of election agencies, procedures and systems are almost nonexistent in America. The very concept of comprehensive election audits has been criticized and opposed by some election officials and even by the current U.S. Department of Justice.

Why would officials oppose such audits, unless they fear they will turn up embarrassing mistakes, incompetence or malfeasance? The Justice Department’s opposition to the Arizona state Senate’s audit of Maricopa County was a purely partisan action that had no legal merit. Election audits are well within the constitutional authority of states.

It should be understood that what some election officials refer to as audits are not, in fact, audits. Simply recounting, by hand, ballots that were counted by a computer scanner on Election Day is not a comprehensive audit. Yes, that can ensure that the scanners were operating and tabulating the vote correctly. However, it cannot tell whether the ballots were cast by eligible, qualified voters. If noncitizens or people living outside a jurisdiction are able to register and vote without being detected by election officials, a simple recount will not alert authorities that illegal ballots were cast.

Election audits should be conducted by independent, experienced experts. Obviously, you cannot have election officials audit their own performance. Corporate audits are conducted by independent experts to avoid having corporate personnel cover up mistakes, errors and problems. Corporate staff — just like election officials — have a nonwaivable conflict of interest that prevents them from serving as independent auditors.

To ensure the integrity of our elections, it would be best for every election jurisdiction, from counties to townships, to be audited after every election. That may not be possible due to cost and a lack of experienced auditors. But states could implement a system that audits a number of different jurisdictions within the state on a rotating and random basis, guaranteeing that every election jurisdiction would be audited at least once every few years.

A mandatory audit system like this should also require election officials, as well as third parties who provide election services and equipment, to cooperate fully with auditors or risk being fired.

Comprehensive election audits would make sure election officials took all steps necessary before the election to ensure only eligible individuals cast ballots, which entails checking legal residence, age, citizenship and other requirements. Auditors would check that all voting equipment was subjected to testing both before and after the election, was not connected to the internet at any time during the voting and tabulation period, and that no unapproved software or malware was to added before or after the election.

Auditors would make sure all election observers were given complete access to the entire voting and tabulation process, including the handling of absentee ballots, to ensure compliance with all voter ID, signature-matching and other legal requirements.

Auditors would also check that all complaints by voters, observers and candidates were investigated and properly resolved, and that violations of legal requirements were reported to election and law enforcement officials.

A financial audit should be conducted to verify that all election-office appropriations were properly spent on nonpartisan activities related to registration, voting and administration of the election.

This is not a list of everything an audit should encompass, but it provides an idea of some of the basic requirements. Comprehensive election audits should become a routine occurrence in our elections. They are necessary to ensure the proper conduct of the entire election process and to assure the public, candidates, political parties and the media of the honesty and integrity of our elections.

Hans von Spakovsky is a senior legal fellow and manager of the Election Law Reform Initiative at The Heritage Foundation. His new paper, “Best Practices and Standards for Election Audits,” can be found at heritage.org.

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Shane Stanton
Shane Stanton
1 year ago

“If voting mattered, you wouldn’t be allowed to do it”. George CarlinThe GOP is almost or just a guilty as the Dems.

tsda
tsda
1 year ago

The “Party” started collecting and bribing the potential people controlling aspects of this plan the second you released this article.

Steven Tapper
Steven Tapper
1 year ago

No audit, no election. If you want your votes to be counted than agree to a verifiable audit. Shouldn’t be an issue unless you are trying to manipulate the election.

Barb304
Barb304
1 year ago

That would be great if we could only find people who were trustworthy.

Deborah Wood
Deborah Wood
1 year ago

A million AMEN’S!

Patty Quackenbush
Patty Quackenbush
1 year ago

To add to the cyber fraud and millions of illegals voting like in California and the drop boxes that Zuckerberg put in to the tune of 1/2 billion dollars so “mules” to drop thousands of ballots for Biden and all the other fraud that went on, there were 39 million Christians that didn’t vote at all. Some low lifes where I live aren’t necessarily Christian but they don’t vote either as long as they keep getting their welfare, foodstamps and medicaid they don’t care who runs the country. We have always had to show identification to prove you had the right to vote. As far as audits go, they need to be forensic audits by qualified cyber experts with high designations and these audits should now be down at every election. Voting only on day of election. No mail in voting. Can’t make it in person? You don’t get to vote. All the proof is out there how the fraud in 2020 was committed and by whom. My question is, why hasn’t the election been looked at by the Supreme Court who right after the election three justices wanted to look at the few hundred affidavits and were shot down by justice Roberts, a Trump hater. Well, there are 40000 affidavits that Georgia has and who knows how many from other states. Texas and I believe Arizona and maybe Wisconsin have already ruled that Biden lost. So why isn’t the piece of cow dung posing as our commander in chief not been thrown in prison along with every Democrat and rhino and every one in on it? Does anyone really believe that 2022 will be a fair and free election? Fauci and that piece of cow dung mentioned above already have said that a pandemic will likely occur in the fall and either the election will be postponed or you will only be able to vote by mail or I really like this, on the internet! Gosh, I can’t think of anything more fair than voting by mail or on the internet. Can you? Get real. Unless people like say the over 80 million that really voted for Trump stand up and demand the election be overturned and those responsible held accountable. We can start with George Soros. Hanging is the punishment for treason. And these hangings should be televised worldwide. That’s my two cents and I’m sticking by it.

Michael J
Michael J
1 year ago

Vote by mail, what could go wrong? The best system is what the credit card companies use. Virtually instant tally, exact location and time. Invalidates duplicate voting attempts and time stamps legitimate or illegal voting attempts. Digital records for prosecution violations. Democrats won’t like it though.

Becky
Becky
1 year ago

Absolutely YES to these proposals.
It will never happen.
Communists cannot cheat and steal elections under these circumstances.

William C Smith
William C Smith
1 year ago

AGREED. Additionally, there should be independent, unaligned auditing firms contracted (bid basis, only) contracted to perform after-election analyses and provide PUBLIC reports within a reasonable period. No one affiliated with managing, conducting elections should be able to hide behind any designation or device, while they go about their manipulations. Stiff penalties must be imposed and prevail for improper actions/activities. The system must be taken away from the purview of elected judges and officials, especially those who are allowed to compete declaring no political party affiliation (pure nonsense). Our system encourages complying with and accepting election outcomes—but there must be faithful adherence to proper methods and procedures

FUK
FUK
1 year ago

Yes.

Tom Lake
Tom Lake
1 year ago

Only verifiable bipartisan audits will work. Better yet, in person voting with on-the-spot veriifiable passport or federal/state IDs.

Rudder
Rudder
1 year ago

Totally agree about the rotating random audits, not just at the precinct level, but also at the county election commission level.

poded
poded
1 year ago

Arizona is being sued for requiring this by president poopy pantyasses administration!

anna hubert
anna hubert
1 year ago

All that is needed is to implement all the rules is it possible yes is it probable no It would mean fair play not in dems.vocabulary

Steve
Steve
1 year ago

All well said and done but they will hold up the results find irregularities etc , etc . Here is an idea get the nearly 50 percent that don’t vote to vote !! Make it so they understand the people who only worry about themselves . You don’t vote you don’t get your tax refund start taking care of your country and a little less of yourself!

Christian
Christian
1 year ago

Are you crazy? Why would anybody want election audits? Let’s just trust politicians, lame stream media, big tech, and bureaucrats. What could happen? 😉 This is a No Brainer as it gets. Should have been from day 1 and fully transparent. How much different would The Land of The Free be?

Bob L.
Bob L.
1 year ago

The biggest thing that needs to be done to help curb fraud is go back to only in person voting at one’s precinct of registration. No mail-in ballots, or same day registrations allowed. If people can get downtown to sign up for food stamps, they can get there to register to vote.

DAVID W LOWRANCE
DAVID W LOWRANCE
1 year ago

Election audits as required by each state are a greatly needed as way to help provide honest election results.

LMB
LMB
1 year ago

Voter ID in every election!!!

Tory
Tory
1 year ago

Too much to lose IF we do not fight for
#ElectionIntegrity. Become involved locally, write letters, your collective voice can impact.
Mainstream news will keep us from real wins and losses. Epochtimes, or other outlets (We enjoy (Covid&Coffee) Substack. This attorney keeps the news true and with humor. One corruption, not two. One lockdown. Not two.
We the people must have the voice and get the representation we need. Several agencies need to go! This spending must. ????????

Stephen Russell
Stephen Russell
1 year ago

& add these:
Ballot counts by Computer
No hand counting
Read signature by scanner from Dbase file
Observers in Count room
secure site to print ballots
QR codes used
watermarks
Nationwide

Jeb
Jeb
1 year ago

100%

Jess
Jess
1 year ago

A well thought out article to say the least and very pithy!
But,as always,the devil is in the details.

JEFFREY JONES
JEFFREY JONES
1 year ago

SAVE THE U.S.A…Arrest the whole biden administration for treason!

GaryD
GaryD
1 year ago

Legal voting system is the foundation of our Republic. It’s critical to national survival.

David Millikan
David Millikan
1 year ago

DEFINITELY.

PaulE
PaulE
1 year ago

Good luck with that. The GOP state legislatures had their window of opportunity to enact changes to prevent a repeat of the fiasco known as the 2020 election and only a few took any action. Many GOP state legislatures dragged their feet and did little or nothing for fear of admitting that fraud was indeed significant in the six key swing states. So little was done to prevent a repeat down the road. Well now the window to enact election reforms before the midterms is done across the country. Most state legislatures are out of session and on vacation. We have what we have going into these crucial elections.

I get that most old-guard establishment types in the GOP wanted President Trump gone by any means necessary, because he wouldn’t play ball and he disrupted the “way things have always been done”. All so they could get back to “business as usual” in Washington. However, refusing to enact election reforms for fear of validating all the evidence of ballot manipulation will have consequences in upcoming future elections. Oops, I guess the old-guard establishment types In Washington didn’t quite think their strategy all the way through.

Concerned
Concerned
8 months ago

Yes, Comprehensive election audits should become a routine occurrence in our elections. It is obvious that they are necessary to ensure the proper conduct of the entire election process and to assure the public, candidates, political parties and the media of the honesty and integrity of our elections. I know, I just repeated the summary paragtaph, but truth is truth even when repeated.

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