Federal Election Audit Costs

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By Kathy Dopp (about the author) Page 1 of 1 page(s)

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For OpEdNews: Kathy Dopp - Writer

Since 2005, I have worked with others, including Ron Baiman, Frank Stenger and Ron Rivest to develop the new field of election audit mathematics.

On Thursday, March 15, I obtained the election results from 2002 and 2004 US House and Senate races and used it to calculate cost estimatess and success probabilities for manually auditing all federal elections.

A cost analysis based on real election results disproves the prior analysis of the two persons who will be testifying on Tuesday before the House Admin Cmte on election audits, who formerly claimed that the Holt audit was less administratively burdensome than more effective election audits that have higher chance to detect vote fraud:
Brennan Center Letter Supporting Holt's Audit

When evaluated using 2002 and 2004 election results, Holt's HR811 is only 10% Effective at detecting vote fraud and is More Costly than Election Audits designed to be 99% effective. Holt's audit is more administratively burdensome than more effective election audits!

The reasons for the lack of effectiveness and costliness of the Holt/Clinton/Nelson/Tubb-Jones audit are explained in this paper:

Federal Election Audit Costs

The data for replicating the cost analysis is available here:

http://electionarchive.org/ucvAnalysis/US/paper-audits/dopp_b.csv

The National Election Data Archive paid $1500 to obtain the data from Election Data Services and is seeking donations to repay its costs.

My previous paper shows how low the success rates are for the Holt audit:
Evaluation of Election Audit Proposals

There is only one (1) business day before the next House Admin Cmte "Election Reform" Hearing on Tuesday March 20. (The House Admin Cmte moved up the date from Thursday, March 22, but have yet to release the time or place.)

Please call, fax, or email your US Representatives NOW and ask them to read the cost estimate for conducting nationwide audits.

Please fax or attach a copy to the staffer who works on EI legislation for your own Representative and Senator:

Within a day or two, we hope to publicly release a new proposal for Election Reform Legislation that would work better for all stakeholders; ensure election integrity; reduce voter disenfranchisement; and be more achievable.

http://senate.gov/
and
http://www.house.gov/

http://ElectionArchive.org

Founder and President of US Count Votes, dba The National Election Data Archive and volunteer for honest, accurately counted elections since 2003. Masters degree in mathematics with emphasis on computer science. Has written numerous academic and (more...)

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