Smart Audit of Election 2020,

A Reasonable Path forward for

State Legislatures

A Preliminary Statement of Objectives for

Restoring Transparency & Trust

Tuesday, August 24, 2021

Assembled by the retired founder of

Smart Audit of Election 2020, A Reasonable Path forward for State Legislatures

”Confidence in our election system will not be

achieved until America’s scientific community
demonstrates the will to design and help
implement a transparent, auditable and
manageable election system.”

Election Science Institute

American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS)
Presentation on September, 2005
Washington, DC

A Preliminary Statement of Objectives for Restoring Transparency & Trust 2

Smart Audit of Election 2020, A Reasonable Path forward for State Legislatures

Overview
State legislatures, Secretaries of State and election officials in several battleground states remain
under public pressure to provide transparency into the results of the 2020 US Federal election.
Yet, government officials are exhibiting reticence to pursue this same arduous and costly audit
path given the apparent difficulty, expense and time required to conduct an audit similar to that
conducted in Arizona.

Fortunately, there is a meaningful, credible, reasonable and non-partisan path for an election
review that will most likely satisfy the public’s calls for transparency while also minimizing the
demands on public officials and organizations. This path is based upon the lessons learned from
the 2006 forensic audit of Cuyahoga County, Ohio as well as 10 years of election monitoring in
the USA by the Election Science Institute (ESI).

Below, the reader will find a preliminary statement of objectives (SOO) for conducting a
surgical, phased approach to a forensic investigation of the 2020 election. Given the obvious
division in public sentiment, as alluded to in the following section, it’s feasible that a scientific,
objective and transparent investigation of the 2020 election will serve as a means to unify the
public’s faith in our governmental system.

Public Sentiment i
The Monmouth University Polling Institute poll of June 21, 2021 found “that only one-third of
the public believes ‘audits’ of the 2020 election results are legitimate efforts to uncover
irregularities. Moreover, one-third of Americans continue to believe Joe Biden won the
presidency only due to voter fraud – a steady trend since November that underlines the
crystallization of our nation’s deep partisan divide.”

“When all Republican identifiers and leaners are combined, the number who believe Biden won
only because of voter fraud has been fairly stable (63% now, 64% in March, 69% in January, and
66% in November). Furthermore, 14% of the American public say they will never accept Biden
as president, including 3 in 10 (29%) Republicans and Republican leaners.”

“Most Americans (57%) see audits of the 2020 election results that are ongoing or planned as
primarily partisan efforts to undermine valid election results. One in three (33%), though, say
these are legitimate efforts to identify possible voting irregularities. When asked about the
impact of these audits, 40% say they will weaken American democracy versus 20% who say they
will strengthen our democracy, while 35% say they will have no impact.”

“Among all other Americans, just 14% say the audits are legitimate with 55% saying they will
actually weaken our democracy. Overall, 38% of the American public expects the impact of
these audit efforts to be long-lasting, including nearly two-thirds of those who believe they will
either weaken (63%) or strengthen (64%) our democracy.”

A Preliminary Statement of Objectives for Restoring Transparency & Trust 3

Smart Audit of Election 2020, A Reasonable Path forward for State Legislatures

Big Picture Objectives

Strategic, surgical audits instead of arduous & costly audits.
- Phased, forensic investigation that moves from least invasive to more invasive, and is
based upon:
proven election auditing best practices developed over a decade ago;
data and findings from preceding investigation(s).
- Scientific, transparent, and politically neutral methodologies to identify scale, source
and possibly cause of irregularities.
- Simple to execute, easy to understand, providing speedy construction of hard evidence.

Legislature control of every step of the investigative process, while being given the
knowledge, via data driven findings, to make informed decisions before determining the
vector of additional investigations. if required.

Well-defined media plans and narratives in order to educate the public on the complexities
of the election system, why irregularities occurred, the significance of these irregularities,
and the remediation plan for future elections to mitigate these irregularities.

#VerifyBeforeCertify future elections. Realistic, achievable monitoring plan for election

officials to implement in future elections that creates appropriate and timely transparency in
the elections results such that the public has confidence in the final vote certification.

Clarifying the Burden of Proof

Election officials are responsible for demonstrating that:
- all ballots counted are qualified, and legal;
- all ballots are counted accurately.

Public is not responsible for demonstrating error.

Certification is an affirmative assertion that the election was accurate, and met all legal
standards.

A Preliminary Statement of Objectives for Restoring Transparency & Trust 4

Smart Audit of Election 2020, A Reasonable Path forward for State Legislatures

Challenges of Current Environment

Little to no external domain experience in election systems, operations, auditing or
monitoring. Virtually all current actors in the field of external election monitoring and
investigation have only recently entered the domain as a result of the November 2020
election. Hence, the course of action for audit requests are being driven by actors who
possess limited election experience, but are sometimes selling themselves as experts.

No audit roadmap. States do not possess a roadmap for reviewing election results, or
verifying results prior to or after certification of votes casts. Further, there is no simple static
roadmap possible. Instead, what is a required is a dynamic “Expert Tree,” whereby the next
course of investigative action depends on previous investigative findings.

Recent audit case study gives other state legislatures pause. Arizona, which is the only
state to have recently conducted a forensic election review, opted to perform the most
arduous investigative task by manually recounting all of the ballots in the state’s largest
county.

No current election monitoring system. External measurement capabilities of election

system accuracy, as well as historical data for which to benchmark election system
performance, are currently unavailable.

Election community is currently restrictive, hindering election transparency and the ability
to create a collaborative environment to verify election results. Election officials have valid
concerns that divulging their internal systems processes and data will result in vilification of
themselves and their jurisdiction. Voting equipment vendors share similar concerns, creating
an insular environment that resists transparency.

Election officials are overly dependent upon private contractors to execute elections as
systems are too complicated to operate without external assistance. Independent vendors,
which election officials can rely upon for operational support, do not exist.

Public is demanding accountability and transparency. Public’s patience for investigative

results is limited, however, paths to verifying election integrity can be complicated, difficult
to prove and understand. Additionally, absorbing sheer quantity, diversity & fluidity of
information is exhausting.

Public division & hostility is quickly increasing as media is bursting with hyperbolic
emotions, politicization and unsubstantiated rhetoric.

A Preliminary Statement of Objectives for Restoring Transparency & Trust 5

Smart Audit of Election 2020, A Reasonable Path forward for State Legislatures

Path for Forensic Investigation: Surgical Approach

Strategic, meaningful, phased election review.

- Determine amplitude and source of irregularities. Approximately 50% of the research

questions that the public would want answered can be addressed with approximately 20%
of the work involved in a manual paper recount.

- Leverage existing election data where ever possible. Initial RFP is designed to narrow
focus for further research, and is based upon material election officials regularly produce
as part of the election canvass process.

- Phased, limited RFP’s. State legislature generates RFP’s for election investigation,
designed to answer research questions based upon findings from previous RFP’s. Each
RFP will contain specific research questions to answer and stipulate well-defined
deliverables.

- Manual recounts happen last. If necessary or demanded by voters, after all other
targeted work is complete. And if manual recounts are required, we can use sophisticated
statistical sampling methodologies to significantly limit the scale of the workload while
maintaining similar confidence in the result.

Onboard state legislature. State legislature must be briefed on all findings, and act as the
milestone decision authority (MDA), guiding and approving transition into subsequent
research phases, and RFP’s, if needed.

Involve election officials. Recruit and hire election officials in neighboring (non-audited)
counties and non-permanent election workers to assist in all aspects of the research and
investigation process. Their domain experience, attention to detail, and patriotism are
invaluable.

Media preparation. Election transparency requires a well-planned media campaign, with

simple narratives that are easy for the public to understand. The media, public, legal and
political communities must be educated on the complexities of the election system; why
these irregularities occurred; the significance of these irregularities and the plan for
mitigating them in future elections. A media campaign must be executed in concert with the
election investigation. Lastly the language and tone of all messaging must be apolitical, data
driven, and based upon science.

A Preliminary Statement of Objectives for Restoring Transparency & Trust 6

Smart Audit of Election 2020, A Reasonable Path forward for State Legislatures

Consequences of Inaction
Fraud used to explain irregularities. In absence of hard election data, advocacy groups will
use fraud to explain irregularities.

Unexplainable election results. Electronic election systems will continue to exhibit

behavior that is not understood by election officials, politicians, media, or the public.

Election irregularities as political leverage. Irregularities will continue to be leveraged by

candidates for political advantage.

Reduced transparency and access. Election officials will continue to close ranks, and
diminish transparency as a result of decreasing confidence in election results.

Our system of governance diminishes. Public’s confidence in elections decrease... Political

leaders’ ability to lead is diminished.

About ESI
The Election Science Institute (ESI) was a national, non-partisan, non-profit scientific
organization, founded in 2001 and disbanded in 2011.

ESI monitored public elections in the U.S. to identify voting irregularities, and worked directly
with election officials and Secretaries of State to help them implement systems that increased
accuracy, accountability and transparency.

Select highlights of ESI’s work:

Conducted first forensic audit of an electronic election (Cuyahoga County, Ohio – 2006);

Performed code review and vulnerability remediation of ES&S voting machines;

Deployed real-time 360° election monitoring (incl. exit polling);

Developed trusted relationships with Election officials & SoS’s across the nation;

Select ESI Media appearances:

CNN CBS TV News
McNeil Lehrer NPR
Lou Dobbs PBS Now
American Enterprise Institute Diane Rehm Show

The organization was disbanded due to lack of public interest in election integrity, a vacuum of
will by the political class to address election transparency & accuracy, and a failure of the
funding community to provide support.

A Preliminary Statement of Objectives for Restoring Transparency & Trust 7

Smart Audit of Election 2020, A Reasonable Path forward for State Legislatures

Selection of ESI References

ESI archive (where a snippet of documents and public media are available):
https://votewatch.wordpress.com.

Presentation to American Association for the Advancements of Science, 2005

https://www.scribd.com/document/517175364/Election-Science-Institute-ESI-Presentation-
to-AAAS

Presentation to the American Enterprise Institute, 2006

https://votewatch.wordpress.com/2021/07/20/election-science-institute-presentation-to-the-
american-enterprise-institute-2006/

Election Transparency: How Ready Are States and Counties?

https://votewatch.wordpress.com/2021/07/25/esi-election-transparency-how-ready-are-states-
and-counties/

Audit: Voting Machine Analysis, Cuyahoga County, Ohio (2006)

https://votewatch.wordpress.com/2013/01/05/voting-machine-analysis-cuyahoga-county-
ohio-2006/

Examining Voting Problems using a Mixed Method Approach (2004),

American Association for Public Opinion Research
https://votewatch.wordpress.com/2012/12/18/examining_voting_problems_mixed_methods_
stevenhertzberg/

i
https://www.monmouth.edu/polling-institute/reports/monmouthpoll_us_062121/

A Preliminary Statement of Objectives for Restoring Transparency & Trust 8