20% is sufficient amount of vote counts to audit to ensure integrity of outcomes in almost all federal elections for most election systems, although it would fall short of ensuring election integrity in small close local races. CT's new proposed audit amount is a vast improvement in the sufficiency of manual audits. This is a terrific step forward by Susan Bysiewicz who also had the smarts to select optical scan voting systems (no DREs) for CT! I am not familiar with the audit procedures being proposed for CT however. It is important that audit procedures be transparent, verifiable, and independent.
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01/12/2007
Secretary of the state would make Conn. national model for election security
By Keith M. Phaneuf , Journal Inquirer

http://www.journalinquirer.com/site/news.cfm?newsid=17707463&BRD=985&PAG=461&dep
t_id=161556&rfi=6

Excerpts from the article below:

HARTFORD - Hoping to make Connecticut a national model for safe
elections, Secretary of the State Susan Bysiewicz unveiled a proposal
this week calling for mandatory annual audits of one-fifth of all
polling places.

"We owe it to the voters to allow them to always feel confident that
they have an fair and transparent election process," Bysiewicz said
during an interview in her Capitol office.

And while an ongoing debate on Capitol Hill includes a proposed
national standard of audits in at least 2 percent of each state's
voting precincts, Bysiewicz says she's looking at a much tougher
standard.

The secretary said Thursday she is submitting a proposal to the state
legislature's Government Administration and Elections Committee that
would require audits in at least 20 percent of the state's 769 voting
precincts, to be selected randomly.

Connecticut conducted a pilot program in 25 communities this fall. Two
post-election analyses found no mistakes made by the new machines -
which read ballots that voters mark by filling in ovals next to
candidates' names.

But unlike the outgoing metal lever machines, they easily allow each
ballot to be re-examined, both visually and electronically. Local
election officials normally can complete an audit within one day.

"We have the capacity to do it, and I want the taxpayers to know that
we've spent money on machines that work," Bysiewicz said. "I think
it's very clear we made the right decision as to voting tech, but this
would make us a national leader.

AOT 2007
(c)Journal Inquirer 2007

(Go to link for rest of article)


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