Counties conduct audits and recount before certifying results

• Jordan Wilkie/WITF
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  As the democracy reporter for WITF, I will cover any kind of story that has to do with how we govern ourselves. That will include doing a lot of election coverage about how to access the ballot, how public officials administer elections, the technology used to run and secure elections, and the laws that govern it all.
  
  My work will also include accountability coverage for elected officials that use their positions to then undermine democratic institutions, like the legislators that voted against the certification of the presidential election results on January 6, 2021. If that weren’t enough, I foresee covering some local government decisions, fights over public records and transparency, and some candidate coverage in 2024. Many stories can have a “democracy frame” meant to help us all understand how our governments work and how we can shape them.
  
  I’m most looking forward to the community reporting about which WITF is passionate. I’ll be talking to a lot of folks about what they want out of their governments, local to national, and how they want to make their visions reality. I’m excited to meet you and talk, with or without a microphone on hand.
  
  I also like to turn my work phone off. When I do that, I’m looking for rocks to climb, trails to run on (slower and slower, somehow), and new places to visit. I’ve lived in the (extended) South for most of my life, so y’all will hear me say things funny and sometimes my hearing is funny, too, so we’ll figure out this radio thing together.

Mail-in ballots sit in a secure area of the the Allegheny County Elections Division warehouse, Wednesday, Oct. 30, 2024, in Pittsburgh. (AP Photo/Matt Freed)

Counties across the state are auditing election results to make sure vote totals reflect the will of the voters. Pennsylvania requires two types of audits before results are certified, clearing the way for elected officials to be sworn into office. 

County certification is due Monday, November 25, in all races except for the U.S. Senate, which is undergoing a full recount due to narrow margins. In that race, the certification deadline is the 27th. 

The first audit is required by state law and mandates each county reviews 2% or 2,000 ballots, whichever is fewer. 

“In a small county, 2,000 ballots is a significant share of their ballots. But a county like Philadelphia or Allegheny, it isn’t,” said Chrissa LaPorte, deputy policy and strategy director for Verified Voting. 

The group helped Pennsylvania design its second check on results, called a “risk-limiting audit.” 

This model is recommended by several national organizations including the Department of Homeland Security and the National Academies of Sciences as a gold-standard check on election results. The audit model scales both to the margin of victory in the race to be audited and the number of ballots in a county selected to conduct the audit. Pennsylvania is one of six states to require this type of check. 

The audit requires a hand-recount of votes for a randomly selected statewide race on randomly selected groups of ballots in randomly selected counties. That includes 37,098 ballots in 32 counties.

Transparency is built into the process. The state live-streamed its selection of treasurer as the race to audit, then live-streamed the rolling of 10-sided dice to create a random seed number used to select which ballots to pull, using open-source software built to conduct these audits. 

“Over the next few days, teams of auditors in each randomly selected county will manually review and tally the votes cast for state treasurer from the ballots in those selected batches,” said Secretary of State Al Schmidt during a press conference on Monday. 

Once counties have finished the review, the Department will compile the results to see if the currently reported outcome of the race is correct. The Department publishes an audit report after each election. Those reports include any discrepancies between the hand-count and the machine count.

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