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Risk Limiting Audit

The risk-limiting audit is a procedure that provides strong statistical evidence that the election outcome is correct, or has a high probability of correcting an outcome that wouldn't match a full hand count of the ballots. The audit itself requires human beings to examine and verify more ballots in close contests and fewer ballots in contests with wider margins.

Press Release - Orange County, CA Elections to Conduct Risk Limiting Audit of Westminster Special Recall Election Results


Risk Limiting Audit Final Results

The required 5% risk limit was reached on 4/17/2020 after auditing 120 ballots. 

Risk Limiting Audit Progress

4/17/2020

  • The risk-limiting audit concluded after the required 5% risk limit was met.
  • 120 total ballots were audited.
  • 1 overstatement was recorded.
  • Registrar of Voters increased the audit from 107 ballots to 120 ballots due to the overstatement.
  • No additional discrepancies were found after increasing the audit. 

4/16/2020

  • 61 ballots have been audited.
  • No discrepancies found. 

Risk Limiting Audit Files for Download

Publicly available information is an important facet of a risk limiting audit. Files used to conduct the risk-limiting audit, and their hash values, will be posted here. 

Download the combined and complete manifest

SHA-256 hash, hex: f709f1e959bf54c33593fe0924e1346fd8801e4e52efb02d80db80adc8d52f4e

View the Random Seed

Random Seed: 60853020971157277135

  • The random seed is generated by numerous people, including members of the public, rolling ten-sided dice.
  • The random seed is used to generate the random sequence of ballots that is audited. 
  • The seed is used in conjunction with Ron Rivest's (MIT) "sampler.py" pseudo-random number generator and the ballot manifest to generate the publicly verifiable random sample.  Observers can reproduce the sample independently, using for example the Pseudo-Random Number Generator using SHA-256 at https://www.stat.berkeley.edu/~stark/Vote/auditTools.htm

View a recording of the dice roll

Risk Limiting Audit Hours of Operation
The audit was performed at the Registrar of Voters office from 8:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. until the audit is complete.