[Natl-election-officials] PR "AuditEngine" to be Piloted for Election Audits in Maryland

Sun Nov 5 17:53:45 EST 2023

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE*
"AuditEngine" to be Piloted for Election Audits in Maryland

*"Our goal is to audit all elections, contests, and ballots by 
independent teams instead of insiders"

Rockville City, MD, October 31, 2023 - Citizens Oversight, a 
Delaware-based 501(c)(3) nonprofit
corporation, has entered into an agreement with the Maryland State Board 
of Elections and
officials in Rockville City, Montgomery County, MD, to conduct a 
demonstration "pilot" audit of
live election data in the upcoming November 2023 Rockville City 
election. This pilot aims to
showcase the effectiveness of the cloud-based AuditEngine platform for 
auditing elections using
ballot images and other election data.

The agreement involves collaboration with the State Board of Elections 
and the Mayor and City
Council of Rockville City, Maryland.

*Pilot Audit Scope:*
In addition to the live November 2023 Rockville City election, the pilot 
audit will include two
historical elections, such as the 2022 elections in Montgomery County 
and Somerset County.
Citizens Oversight has developed a cloud-based ballot-image auditing 
platform known as
AuditEngine. It leverages the power of thousands of parallel computers 
to rapidly process all
ballot images and compare independent tabulations with official results, 
allowing for a detailed
ballot-by-ballot comparison of all contests on the ballot. Unlike other 
auditing solutions,
AuditEngine compares the voter-verifiable text on ballot summary cards 
created by Ballot
Marking Devices (BMDs) used by many voters who vote in person, to 
effectively check the
voter-verifiable text and "skip over" the unverifiable barcodes.

*Key Facts:*
Citizens Oversight, Inc. is a Delaware 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization 
with primary offices in
San Diego. They have developed the AuditEngine ballot-image auditing 
application starting in
2019 based on design ideas from around 2006.

The pilot audit will be conducted by Citizens Oversight at no cost. Its 
goal is to provide a report
for the Maryland State Board of Elections to assess whether AuditEngine 
qualifies for a
state-wide contract to audit all elections in the state or for municipal 
elections as needed. More
importantly, the results of this pilot can be used by other states and 
counties to evaluate the
usefulness of this tabulation audit process.

Ray Lutz, Executive Director of Citizens Oversight and architect of the 
AuditEngine system,
expressed enthusiasm about the collaboration with Maryland, stating, "We 
are happy to be able
to work with officials in the state of Maryland and particularly in 
Rockville City, to test both our
software platform as well as the logistics of cooperation. The audit is 
based on a review of
digital ballot images to create an independent tabulation and then 
comparison with cast-vote
records on a ballot-by-ballot basis. Our case studies in Florida, 
Georgia, Wisconsin, and New
Jersey support our confidence that AuditEngine will provide an extremely 
robust audit of the
counties in Maryland."

AuditEngine operates securely in a Virginia datacenter, authorized to 
utilize up to 10,000 virtual
machines in parallel to efficiently review all ballots by inspecting the 
images created by ballot
scanners during the initial scan.

AuditEngine does not directly communicate with the isolated "air-gapped" 
computers in election
offices and cannot modify official election data. AuditEngine provides 
detailed reports pointing
out any discrepancies, and it can also provide transparency to voters 
who wish to review the
details of the audit.

Lutz added, "We've discovered fascinating issues in almost all audits we 
have performed,
usually regarding quirks in the election system, and we continue to be 
impressed by the overall
quality of work done by election offices even though sometimes there is 
a need to work around
limitations in the voting systems. We find it an honor to work with the 
State of Maryland in this
pilot project."

The pilot audit will be mainly of interest to districts outside Maryland 
for the 2024 election
season because Maryland has already granted the contract for 2024-2025 
audits in Maryland to
their prior vendor, as announced at the recent Sept. 28 Maryland State 
Board of Elections
meeting.

"We are hoping Maryland will conduct a fair bidding process for future 
audits, particularly any
municipal elections in Maryland and in other states, as our solution is 
competitively priced and
we offer auditing of all BMD ballots, while our competition does not.

"We regard Maryland as the absolute leader in providing clean data 
suitable for nearly fully
automated audits ballot images to build confidence in the outcome."

MEDIA ADVISORY
Initial results will be provided within 24 hours after receiving the 
ballot images, and then Cast
Vote Records will be provided for our detailed comparison. After the 
audit is completed and the
narrative report drafted, a meeting will be held in Rockville City to 
review the results of the audit
and solicit feedback from election officials and the public. The exact 
time and place to be
announced.

For media inquiries and further information, please contact:
Media Contact: Ray Lutz, Executive Director
email: support at citizensoversight.org
619-440-3646

About Citizens' Oversight:
Citizens' Oversight is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization committed to 
enhancing the integrity
and transparency of the electoral process through innovative auditing 
solutions.

References:
1. "Case Study Report: 2020 Election Ballot Image Audits in Collier 
County, Volusia County, and
St. Lucie County Florida" -- https://copswiki.org/Common/M1970
2. "Dual Tabulation Issue in ES&S Voting Equipment" -- 
https://copswiki.org/Common/M1989/
3. "2020 General Election Audit Reports for Bartow GA, Fulton GA and 
Dane WI" --
https://copswiki.org/Common/M1986
4. NJ -- Three County 2022 Audit Narrative Report -- In this report, we 
provide details of many
issues found by AuditEngine as the counties of Monmouth and Mercer were 
phasing in new
voting systems.
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1HhAfIGlhEQUIHpyChl0uJORUmymGAZq9thdPMbKuGXs
/edit?usp=sharing

Ray Lutz, Executive Director
CitizensOversight, Inc.
771 Jamacha Rd 148
El Cajon, CA 92019

support at citizensoversight.org
619-440-3646

-- 

-------
Ray Lutz
Citizens' Oversight Projects (COPs)
http://www.citizensoversight.org
619-820-5321

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