HOUSE DOCKET, NO. 2980        FILED ON: 1/19/2023

HOUSE  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  No. 726

The Commonwealth of Massachusetts

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PRESENTED BY:

Andres X. Vargas

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To the Honorable Senate and House of Representatives of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts in General
Court assembled:

The undersigned legislators and/or citizens respectfully petition for the adoption of the accompanying bill:

An Act protecting elections using risk-limiting audits.

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PETITION OF:

HOUSE DOCKET, NO. 2980        FILED ON: 1/19/2023

HOUSE  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  No. 726

The Commonwealth of Massachusetts

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In the One Hundred and Ninety-Third General Court
(2023-2024)

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An Act protecting elections using risk-limiting audits.

Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives in General Court assembled, and by the authority of the same, as follows:
 

Chapter 54 of the General Laws is hereby amended by striking out section 109A and inserting in place thereof the following section:-

Section 109A. (a) As used in this section, the following terms shall have the following meanings:

"Audit unit", a precinct, a set of ballots, or a single ballot. A precinct, a set of ballots, or a single ballot may be used as an audit unit for purposes of this section only if:

(i) the relevant vote tabulating device is able to produce a report of the votes cast in the precinct, set of ballots, or single ballot; and

(ii) each ballot is assigned to not more than 1 audit unit.

"Contest", an election for an office or for a ballot question.

"Risk-limiting audit", a manual tally employing a statistical method that ensures a large, predetermined minimum chance of requiring a full manual tally whenever a full manual tally would show an electoral outcome that differs from the outcome reported by the vote tabulating system for the audited contest. A risk-limiting audit shall begin with a hand tally of the votes in 1 or more audit units and shall continue to hand tally votes in additional audit units until there is strong statistical evidence that the electoral outcome is correct. If counting additional audit units does not provide statistical evidence to 95 per cent certainty that the electoral outcome is correct, the audit shall continue until there has been a full manual tally to determine the correct electoral outcome of the audited contest.

"Unofficial final results", election results determined under sections 105 and 105A.

(b) The state secretary, in conjunction with the registrars, shall conduct risk-limiting audits after every regular state primary and biennial state election under this section.

(c) The audit program shall be conducted as follows:

(1) The following contests are subject to a risk-limiting audit if more than 1 candidate's name appears on the ballot: (i) president and vice president, representative in congress, senator in congress, governor, representative in the general court and senator in the general court; and (ii) 1 statewide ballot question, if any appear on the ballot, chosen by random drawing. The state secretary may include other contests if the secretary determines there is a substantial public interest in doing so.

(2) The state secretary shall audit units selected in a random, publicly verifiable, non-computerized drawing supervised by the state secretary within 48 hours after polls are closed. The drawing shall be fully observable to the public and representatives of each political party and shall use a procedure that can be easily understood to be random by members of the public. Notice of the time and place of the drawing shall be given at least 10 days before the election on the website of the state secretary.

(3) The state secretary shall make available to the public a report of the vote tabulating device results for the contest, including the results for each audit unit in the contest, before the random selection of audit units to be manually tallied and before the commencement of the audit.

(4) The state secretary in conjunction with the registrars shall conduct the audit upon tabulation of the unofficial final results.

(5) The state secretary in conjunction with the registrars shall conduct the audit in public view by manually counting the ballots according to regulations adopted by the state secretary.

(d) If a risk-limiting audit of a contest leads to a full manual tally of the ballots cast using the voting system, the vote counts according to that manual tally shall replace the vote counts reported for the purpose of determining the official contest results.

(e) The results of any audits conducted under this section shall be published on the website of the state secretary within 48 hours of being completed. If the audit involved a manual tally of 1 or more entire precincts, then the names and numbers of all precincts audited and a comparison of the vote tabulator results with the hand counts for each precinct shall be published with the audit results on the website.

(f) Any audit required under this section shall not commence for an election subject to a recount under section 135.

(g) The state secretary shall prepare and publish on the secretary’s website a comprehensive report of the results of audits under this section, not later than January 15 after a biennial state election.

(h) The state secretary shall adopt regulations and procedures to carry out this section.