Repost from Richmond Times-Dispatch
On Tuesday, the Virginia Board of Elections approved a new risk-limiting audit manual ahead of the general election this November. Though election officials were already conducting risk-limiting audits in Virginia, they are now going to happen before state election officials certify election results.
That’s because the General Assembly passed legislation that repealed and replaced previous state code relating to the audits.
Risk-limiting audits are “a type of post-election audit that utilizes statistical methods and a manual review of paper ballots to confirm that the voting equipment accurately reported the correct outcome of an election,” the manual reads.
The audits analyze a random sample of hand-counted ballots to confirm election results along with using auditing software called Arlo. The process helps confirm that voting accurately reported election results.