Checking election audits: Scenes 1-2
Channel: Lang1234
Date: 2022-06-13

Sources of anything surprising are here. Or ask in comments.
0:00 1 - Risks, even when not connected to internet, risk-limiting audits, observe, campaign, logic & accuracy tests
5:40 2 - Hand-counting, samples of precincts or election machines, deterrence, anonymous public copies, ballot image audits
IN ANOTHER VIDEO:
3 - Locks, seals, checking before ballots go into storage, hash values & digital signatures
4 - Audit software, observers
5 - Can public data can be mis-used? Telling truth from fiction, why we check so little

SCRIPT & citations: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1qnjHBZJRTNB42irahsR624FW0jD-EY0JzVmovINjTBU/edit?usp=sharing

How to observe election processes yourself: https://scrutineers.org/after
Groups working for better elections in your state: http://www.votewell.net/state.htm

CITATIONS (These are also in plain text at end of script link, above)

Senate Intelligence “Committee continues to be concerned that vendors represent an enticing target [f]or malicious cyber actors.” https://www.intelligence.senate.gov/publications/russia-inquiry 

Brennan Center found hundreds of errors nationwide: https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/research-reports/design-deficiencies-and-lost-votes with more recent examples at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electronic_voting_in_the_United_States#Errors_in_optical_scans 

The state told us to check just one or two contests; and we hand-counted 2%: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Election_audit#Table_of_audit_rules 

More and more places give give copies of the anonymous scanned ballots to the public: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Ballot-foia.png

Software can analyze scanned ballots and help people tally them: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s52pjYAWnM0 

Samples’ chance of catching errors: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1KRSIzmY_Ip5VhnpVf_SVvVwKcZlCe9BOKiF5cHt6McE/edit?usp=sharing 

Small penalties for election crimes: http://www.votewell.net/prosecution.htm 

YouTubes about lockpicking: https://www.youtube.com/embed/ULUz4u5FLYg?start=166&end=179 

Children bypassing seals: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yaOVIFnoljo

Russians hacking security cameras: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=idOpgrq9czc

Verified Voting says that same-day checking is ideal. https://verifiedvoting.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/Checking-The-Paper-Record-A-Guide-For-Public-Oversight-Of-Tabulation-Audits.pdf  p.14 "If votes were tabulated and the tabulation audited at the polling place at the end of the voting day, the chain of custody could be easily verified. For a variety of reasons, this ideal is almost never attained." VV doesn't distinguish in that quote about type of tabulation or type of audit. It wouldn't work for RLAs, since the polling place wouldn't know the contest-wide margin of victory, It would work for checking a sample of images and for batch comparisons. The "ideal" fully works only for checking a small sample of images, since batch comparisons wouldn't be allowed on early voting days. The words in the script are designed to reflect the concept accurately, without restricting it to polling places.

The Pew Research Center found that only 13% of Republicans and 4% of Democrats were "very confident that election systems are secure from hacking and other technological threats."  Pew 10/29/18, “Election security” https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2018/10/29/election-security/ 

Animals: 
CC-A-SA license, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Bear_(Ursus_arctos).jpg 
CC-A license https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Daisy_the_Dalmatian.jpg
Public domain https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:File-Cow_and_bull_bison_in_rut;-Jim_Peaco;-July_2012;-Catalog_18940d;-Original_IMG_5670_(8cff5b38-fc57-493c-b665-10dfbb551c77).jpg 
CC-A-SA license, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Beaver-_Steve_Hersey_edit_(16273141142).jpg 
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