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Boulder County's Election Audit Open to Public

The following is a press release from Boulder County Elections and is published by the Longmont Observer as a public service.
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Boulder County Logo Source: Boulder County website

This content was originally published by the Longmont Observer and is licensed under a Creative Commons license.

The following is a press release from Boulder County Elections and is published by the Longmont Observer as a public service. 

The public is invited to observe the Boulder County Election Division’s 2018 Primary Election risk-limiting audit (RLA) beginning on Monday, July 9.

Boulder County was the first county in the nation to conduct a version of a risk-limiting audit in 2009 and led the legislative initiative to require Colorado counties to perform risk-limiting audits beginning in 2017.

This will be the second statewide risk-limiting audit performed in Colorado and our state is the first in the nation to have such a requirement. While Boulder County and all Colorado counties have always conducted post-election audits, a risk-limiting audit is considered the “gold standard” test of election results.

  • What:     Boulder County Risk-Limiting Audit
  • When:    Begins Monday, July 9 at 9:30 a.m. 
                   (see detailed schedule below)
  • Where:   1750 33rd Street in Boulder – 
                    Ballot Processing Center (check in at 
                    Elections Office first – Suite 200)

The risk-limiting audit is a post-election quality assurance test that ensures the accuracy of election results and provides citizens with evidence that election outcomes reflect the votes cast. To ensure tabulation was accurate, the process reviews how a ballot’s votes were captured at the time it was processed by comparing a sample of paper ballots with digital tallies. To learn more about risk-limiting audits, see the Secretary of State’s fact sheet on the RLA.

The software that facilitates the risk-limiting audit at the state level is open source, meaning anyone can examine the code themselves and other states are welcome to learn from or build upon it.

Members of the public can observe the risk-limiting audit process along with the canvass and audit board members (the canvass board is the group of individuals who sign-off on the election) at the Boulder County Ballot Processing Center, 1750 33rd Street in Boulder. The following is the schedule of activities:

Monday, July 9

     9:30 a.m. – 10:30 p.m.: Canvass/Audit Board Kick-Off Meeting

     10:30 a.m.- 4:30 p.m. or until finished: Conduct Risk Limiting 
      Audit and Audit Report Sign-Off (same-day, if possible)

Tuesday, July 10

     9:30 a.m. – 4:30 p.m. or until finished: Continue with conducting 
      the Risk Limiting Audit, if necessary

Wednesday, July 11

     2 p.m. – 3:30 p.m.: Canvass Final Presentation & Certification

Complete risk-limiting audit details and data will be available on the Secretary of State’s Audit Center after the audit is complete.

The Boulder County Elections Division expects to update the website with complete and official election results and related documentation on Thursday, July 12, though the date is subject to change.