The Role of Dice in Election Audits – Extended Abstract

Random audits are a powerful technique for statistically verifying that an election was tabulated correctly. Audits are especially useful for checking the correctness of electronic voting machines when used in conjunction with a voter-verified paper audit trail (VVPAT). While laws in many states already require election audits, they generally do not address the procedure for generating the random sample [12]. The sample generation procedure, however, is critical to the security of the audit, and current practices expose a security flaw. This paper examines the problem of sample selection in the context of election audits, identifies necessary requirements for such a procedure, and proposes practical solutions that satisfy those requirements.