By Jackie Killings, President of the League of Women Voters of Georgia
This is an installment in the League of Women Voters of Georgia’s “How Georgia Votes” series. To read previous installments in the “How Georgia Votes” series, follow this link.
When the polls close at 7 p.m. on Election Day, the counting begins, and so does a second process many voters have never heard of: Georgia checking its own results. In this week’s “How Georgia Votes,” I want to explain how ballots are tallied, and how the state confirms that the tally is right.
The count. Every ballot in Georgia is a paper ballot. When you scan your ballot at your precinct, the scanner records your selections and adds them to the precinct’s running total. After the polls close, poll workers close out the equipment, and the results are reported up from the precinct to the county. Because the count begins from paper that you reviewed and cast yourself, there is always a physical record underneath the electronic total.
The audit. Here is the part worth knowing. Georgia law requires an audit after the general election, before the results are made final. In a risk-limiting audit, teams review a sample of the actual paper ballots by hand and compare what they find to the machine totals. The idea is straightforward. When the paper and the electronic count agree, that gives strong statistical confidence the outcome is correct. If a review raised questions, officials could examine more ballots, up to and including a full hand count. It is a check on the electronic totals using the original paper ballots that voters themselves marked and reviewed.
Who does this, and can you watch? The audit is conducted by county election officials, and like the preelection testing covered earlier in this series, it is open to the public. If you would like to see how Georgia checks its own work, your county elections office can tell you when and where the audit will take place. You are welcome to observe.
None of this is hidden. It is verification, built into the process by law, using paper ballots and public observation. That is how confidence is earned, one checked result at a time.
Next in our “How Georgia Votes” series: which comes first after Election Day, certification or a candidate’s request for a recount?
Jackie Killings is president of the League of Women Voters of Georgia, a nonpartisan organization that encourages informed and active participation in government and never supports or opposes any candidate or political party. Learn more at lwvga.org and Vote411.org.
Monica Granderson is the President of the League of Women Voters of Marietta-Cobb County. To see information about activities of the local league, along with Cobb-specific voting and elections information, visit lwvmariettacobbga.com.