With 2020 elections-induced skepticism on the rise, Indiana is stepping up its election-checking game with a series of specialized audits. Election leaders in audited counties are giving the process – relatively new in Indiana – good reviews.
Outgoing Secretary of State Holli Sullivan’s office audited 23 elections in five counties following the 2022 elections, and is wrapping up work in three more counties after primaries in May.
“The feeling that I have in Clark County is [that] any opportunity we can have to show the integrity of the election process, I support,” said Clerk Susan Popp, who’s in the last year of her second – and final – four-year term.
Indiana also audited contests in Allen and Fulton counties.
“It wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be. I think we can get some other counties to do it now,” said Allen County Elections Director Amy Scrogham. She’s worked in that role since February, but has logged more than a decade with the county’s election board.
Sullivan’s office says there are 10 more audits to go after general elections in November. And the state is poised to conduct more, though it’s unclear what’ll happen after a new secretary takes office in January.
Out with the old
Election audits in Indiana have traditionally been limited to simple matches: does the number of voters who checked in to the polling place match the number of ballots cast, or logged by paperless machines?
Election officials then solve any discrepancies in those numbers using reports from poll workers – did someone check in, but ditch without voting? – and certify the results to Indiana.
But the state’s latest efforts go further.
Risk-limiting audits use algorithms to determine how many ballots election-checkers should sample, how to sample randomly, how to find the ballots, and so on. The risk limit, according to pioneers of the statistical strategy at Berkeley University, is the chance that the original, reported outcome, even after the audit, is wrong.
Ball State University’s Voting System Technical Oversight Program, on behalf of Sullivan’s office, leads the process. Election-checkers from each county, however, read off each ballot. The public can watch.
In with the new
The audit ends once there’s enough evidence that a full recount would confirm the original result. The closer the race, the larger the sample.
“It would say, ‘Yes, that’s accurate. This person won.’ Scrogham said of her county’s audits. “It turned green. Green is good. It shows that person won based off this random selection of ballot cards.”
Allen County audited three races over about seven hours. The county uses MicroVote paperless machines, and had printer add-ons attached for early voting.
“That was pretty fun,” Scrogham said. “I mean, I was kind of nervous. But it wasn’t bad.”
Clark County, meanwhile, only uses paper ballots. It took about two days to audit four races there, according to Popp. A Republican and a Democrat in the county’s voter registration office, ok’d by local party chairs, handled the ballots.
“I have confidence throughout the system, but to me, this was just more of a validation publicly that there are no issues as far as voting security [and] voting results in Clark County,” she said.
Popp and Scrogham said their audited elections passed muster, but that Ball State’s results wouldn’t be out in a report until the end of the month. The university’s technical program directed a request for comment to Allen Carter, spokesman for the Secretary Sullivan.
“I have not heard from them on when they expect to have data or what they’re going to send us,” Carter said. “… But once we get the results, the thing that we’ve been doing is trying to get those online.”
The point, he said, is accessibility, so Hoosiers can see for themselves.