ATLANTA — The Georgia Secretary of State touted the Peach State's successful election process as the state is set to begin the post-election risk-limiting audit of the 2024 presidential election.
Brad Raffensperger and his Chief Operating Officer, Gabriel Sterling, hosted a kickoff event on Thursday. Before the event, Raffensperger delivered remarks about his pitch to Congressional leaders to "prioritize national election reform."
His proposal outlined a series of measures that he claims will boost election integrity and voter confidence for all states across the country. His proposal could change how elections are processed across the nation. Some of the procedures are already practiced by the state of Georgia.
They include voter roll cleanout, citizenship verification for voting and registration, photo ID requirement to vote and a ban on ballot harvesting. He is set to discuss his plan with the American Enterprise Institute on Monday in Washington D.C.
“Georgians had more days and more ways to vote than ever before,” Raffensperger noted. “These efforts paid off, resulting in a record turnout election that was safe, secure, and accurate.”
After Raffensperger gave his remarks, officials and members of the public rolled 20 ten-sided die to select random batches for the election risk-limiting audit.
"We have a random number. This way you can't say somebody picked it to kind of direct itself to a specific outcome by starting off in a random way. You assure the fairness and accuracy of the audit itself," Sterling said.
The audit, a standard election integrity measure, ensures that the outcome accurately reflects voters' choices.
Each county is responsible for posting details of its audit on its website, including the schedule and location, to inform residents of when local audits will occur.
What is a risk-limiting audit?
According to Georgia law, risk-limiting audits are post-selection audits that use statistical methods and calculations to limit acceptable levels of possible incorrect outcomes.
Georgia law only allows for a percentage of no greater than 10% for a risk limit, which is the probability of an incorrect outcome. According to Sterling, this year's risk limit is 5% with a 2.2% margin of error.
The purpose of a risk-limiting audit is to sample random batches of ballots, count them by hand, and see if the results mostly align with the official machine-count election results.
That makes it different from a recount in very important ways because recounts are not common in Georgia. It only happens when a candidate requests a recount, and the race is eligible. State law says in order to be eligible for a recount, the margin between the first and second-place finisher has to be 0.5%
County election officials will begin auditing the selected batches on Thursday, and the count must be completed by Tuesday.