“The Auditors fluttered anxiously. And, as always happens in their species when something goes radically wrong and needs fixing instantly, they settled down to try to work out who to blame.” – from Terry Pratchett’s “Hogfather”

We Alabamians rarely mind moving at a slower pace than other parts in the world.

I am not knocking that philosophy. Sometimes that can be the smart way to do things. Often it can be better to sit a spell and see how events play out to minimize future headaches.

Such might be the case when it comes to auditing election results. According to the National Conference of State Legislatures, we are the last state in the union without a state law concerning post-election audits on the books.

I am not one to advocate jumping on board with an idea just because everyone else is doing it. Yet, I believe there is value in conducting post-election audits, and we currently have a bill working its way through the legislature to introduce a modest post-election audit policy for the state.

House Bill 30 has already passed through the House of Representatives and is under consideration in the Senate right now. It would require the probate judge’s office in every Alabama county to conduct an audit of one political race in one voting precinct after every November general election.

The probate judge also has the option of auditing additional precincts and races if he or she chooses to do so. Poll watchers are allowed to observe the audit, and the results are reported back to the Secretary of State’s Office.

Furthermore, the audit can be completed by conducting a full hand count of the selected race or races, or it can be done by running the ballots through a different ballot scanner with a batch of at least 30 ballots also examined by humans to ensure they match the result of the ballot counting machine.

Unlike a recount, an election audit can be thought of more like spot checking. Should a problem be uncovered in an audit, election officials can investigate further to see if the problem is more widespread.

One can wonder if audits are needed since no major claims of election misconduct have been widely reported in Alabama in recent years.

The problems with that thinking are:

• we cannot know if there have been procedures that have been exploited that an audit could identify, and
• if a group begins claiming the administration of elections in Alabama is shoddy or crooked, as has happened in other states, we do not have a highly effective response to those accusations other than saying, “You should take our word for it.”

Another argument against this bill is that auditing only one race in one precinct is unlikely to uncover a problem even if it does exist.

This is a somewhat valid argument, although, I would point out if reports spread on social media that a precinct’s equipment is malfunctioning then that precinct could be chosen as the location to be audited to help quell those concerns.

Moreover, I think this initial step into election auditing could later be expanded to provide more accountability for the entire process.

Audits conducted in other states can also cover issues such as ensuring the number of ballots reported as cast match the number of ballots retained, exposing gaps in the chain of custody of election equipment and ballots, or checking to see if rules and policies were followed as intended for legal compliance.

Georgia performs a statewide hand count audit of a statewide political race under a system where ballots are counted until the results reach a preset statistical risk limit to confirm it is highly likely the outcome of the race was correct. This usually allows the count to be stopped well before every single ballot in the state is counted by hand which saves time and money.

Elections expert Noah Praetz says using election audits can help election officials identify small issues before they become big issues, provide evidence of effectiveness and fairness of the election process, and build resiliency against forces who would try to attack or abuse security gaps.

In the rare instance where you might have a crooked or incompetent election official, audits should help expose that person as well.

It looks like a lot of the kinks have been worked out about how to do this election auditing thing, so maybe our time to get it going is now.