[Iowa-dx] Why Audits Are Necessary (Election Integrity News - April 4, 2007)

[Libris Fidelis]

Why Audits Are Necessary (Election Integrity News - April 4, 2007)

>From: VoteTrustUSA <contact@votetrustusa.org>
>To: ProDemocracyAdvocacy@hotmail.com
>Subject: Election Integrity News - April 4, 2007
>Date: Thu, 5 Apr 2007 03:07:07 +0200
>
>  ELECTION INTEGRITY NEWS - APRIL 4, 2007

Why Audits Are Necessary
by Ion Sancho, Supervisor of Elections, Leon County, Florida

The following testimony was submitted to the Elections Subcommittee of
the Committee on House Administration on March 20, 2007.

In my testimony today I will focus on the problems Florida has encountered
over the past six years and how audits, or more accurately, the lack of
audits, have contributed to the current crisis in confidence Floridians have
in their electoral system.

What are audits? One dictionary definition refers to an official examination
and verification of accounts and records. Merriam-Webster includes “a
methodical examination and review”. Audits are essential to validate the
accuracy truth of a whole range of activities, in private as well as public
entities and financial institutions. The financial transactions of every 
branch
of government are subject to audits. It is these audits which verify the
correctness and accuracy of the actions taken by the organization and
without a complex overlay of audits, whole sections of our economy and
government could be open to attack and criticism as to the validity or
propriety of policy and actions, unless confirmed through the process of
auditing. But we don’t require audits of votes.

Which leads me directly to Florida and the 2000 elections. In Florida,
audits for any election are not required. The word ‘audit’ is mentioned
only six times in our election code, and before last year, the State of
Florida, the Division of Elections had never conducted an audit of any
election in history! The closest thing to an audit in Florida law was our
pre-2000 recount provisions, in Chapter 102, which depending upon the
closeness of the contest could mean that every ballot had to be
manually examined.

Recounts are generally rare events. In my almost 20 year career, I have
overseen four recounts and only one of these – the Presidential election of
2000 – involved a Federal race, and that recount, the only audit we could
use was terminated by the U.S. Supreme court. The embarrassment
suffered by Floridians, including election officials, arising from that
unfortunate event, forced our Legislature to act.

The Governor ordered a bi-partisan task force, which held hearings across
the State and produced 35 excellent recommendations – including audits.
But audits, recounts, voter intent all were discarded in 2001 and
substituted our current statutory framework which abolished complete
manual recounts and thus, the only complete and real audit that could be
done to determine the accuracy of our elections in a close election contest.

If the 2008 election in Florida were to end up in a statistical tie, less 
than
1% of the ballots would be examined. Why? Because in Florida it is
presumed that the voting machines are always 100% accurate – thus in a
recount, only ballots not read by a voting machine – overvotes and
undervotes – would be examined. In Leon County this past November,
approximately 500 ballots out of over 92,000 cast would be manually
examined in a recount – only because these ballots could not be read by
any machine.

Ladies and gentlemen of this committee, let me repeat this – if I were
sample or audit a portion of my county’s machine read ballots to audit or
recount them, I could be removed from public office. Our laws in Florida
are preposterous.

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