My explanation on supporting a true audit of our November Election (and I would argue every federal election going forward) and my last comment on the vote counting. This is what it will take to give me confidence in the election outcomes.
At heart, I am still an auditor. It is about big picture and material accuracy. So…
Why do we want less assurance of accuracy on a Federal election vote count than we want from our major corporation (and small local nonprofit corporation) Fiscal results and Financial Statement Accuracy? The simple answer is we should not.
We require those entities to have a system of controls over their revenue, expenses, assets and liabilities that give us some assurance that the numbers they present to their boards, and/or shareholders are materially accurate. Auditors test those controls by testing transactions through the system. In absence of those controls (some entities are too small or too unsophisticated to put those controls in place) we test the actual transactions to assure accuracy. We use 3rd party verification by mailing confirmations of account balance for Accounts Receivable and Accounts Payables. We may even take the step to speak to major balances and we get attestation from those involved that they have not been a part of or have knowledge of fraud or error. When we are unsure of software most financial packages have regular tests of their platforms they provide to their customers to assure them, and the auditors, the system is functioning as described and as expected and provides the BOD, shareholders, and auditors assurance the system is accurate in the data it reports based upon the inputs.
Let’s apply this to our voting system.
We really do not have a system of controls over our voting system. Even before blindly mailed ballots. Each state has different models. Some do require an ID for in person voting, others do not. Many at least verify address at in person polling center but some do not. The absentee ballot system in place before this year has a modicum of control in that you had to “request” your ballot and before it was mailed to your home a person at the government office responsible for absentee ballots verified you were the name of the person living at your address and likely compared your signature to what was on file and had a right to have an absentee ballot mailed to you. Still, they had no idea if you were the one completing the form. So, in audit terms, that is an opportunity for malfeasance. The question for that was it a “material” (means it could effect the outcome or decision of a person using the data) malfeasance/fraud opportunity.
The Blindly mailed ballots are without a doubt a malfeasance/fraud opportunity. There is Zero control of who receives the ballot, who completed the ballot, or even if the address receiving the ballot had a right to cast a vote. Zero. This is inarguable. Even with the recent mailed stimulus checks we know for a fact over 1 million checks were mailed to deceased individuals. The Voter Rolls are not more accurate than Social Security and income tax rolls.
So, in absence of controls, the only option is to audit the actual transactions, in this case the votes. How would you do that?
First, verification would seem to be that the ballot represents an actual person that is a live and with a right to cast a ballot. Were they alive on election day? Did they live at the address represented for the ballot on election day? That should be the first step. But then we must verify the ballot actually represents the will and vote of the person represented on the ballot. That requires confirmation. At a minimum, some type of signature verification. But the best form of assurance is a confirmation. In this case person to person so a phone confirmation to the person who supposedly cast the ballot to ensure the ballot was theirs, that they completed it or it was completed at their direction in the case of someone physically unable to complete their ballot, and verify the votes cast vs. their wishes.
Let us be honest with each other. The Governors and legislatures that authorized the blindly mailed ballots knew at the time there would be no chance to perform the above verification process. They knew it would be rife with opportunities for malfeasance and fraud. I would argue they planned on it and planned to use it in case of a loss or a victory. There is no way to physically verify millions of votes in the time frame needed for Elector Certification.
Statistically, we have some very improbably outcomes/vote counts in 4 or 5 major voting areas. We have some very questionable “transactions” from the Dominion Software that seem to defy the way the software was supposed to track votes (dumps of over 300K votes all at once between 3 and 4 am in the morning after election day). We know the Software has been utilized in other countries to actively manipulate the votes. The Software provides no 3rd party assurance that it properly processes votes under federal election laws. We know ballots were handled without true independent observation. We know we have hundreds of independent and legally filed affidavits of fraud in all these states and counties which are evidence despite what you hear in the media. The question is are they material. Is the vote counting issues of the software material? That materiality question must be answered.
The only way to get there now, in my opinion, is applying audit procedures. If we want a .005 confidence level how many ballots must be manually verified for accuracy? There are simple and predefined audit sample expectations used every day by the least skilled accountants in their audits of financial statements. Apply those principals. Lets say we have 500,000 mailed in blind ballots. How many must be “sampled” to gain that .005 assurance of accuracy? 2000? 3000? We then assign someone to physically contact those voters and verify their votes were accurately attributed. For the software dumps, the same steps must be applied.
It is that simple. Absent that, you will have 73 Million Americans that have ZERO belief in the outcome of the current election results. And before you point to the already completed recounts, they did ZERO verification in these processes. They just recounted the existing ballots. That is not verification, that is a check of a balance.
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