Final Report for the 2006 Post Election Audit

During the 2007 legislative session, the New Mexico Legislature passed a bill and Governor Richardson signed it into law, which provides for random voting system audits after every statewide general election (see 1-14-13.1, NMSA). Specifically, the law provides that county clerks are to compare the total votes tallied in the general election for the office of president or governor from a random selection of 2% of the voting systems used during the election throughout the state to a hand count of the ballots cast on that system. A voting system is defined as a vote-tabulating machine.

The purpose of the law is to verify the accuracy and efficacy of the voting systems or vote tabulating machines in tabulating votes. Thus, the audit is meant as a performance audit of the voting machines. The New Mexico law is similar to laws that have been passed or are being considered in legislative committees across the country that require manual counts of paper ballots and voter-verifiable paper records in randomly selected units (e.g. precincts or voting systems) and comparing them to the corresponding electronic or manual tallies, for the purpose of verifying the election result with a high level of confidence. The broader purpose of these measures is to strengthen voter confidence in the administration process and its outcomes.

In the spring of 2008, we had the opportunity to develop and test audit procedures in Bernalillo County, New Mexico for the purpose of recommending specific recommendations and guidelines to the New Mexico Secretary of State in preparation for the 2008 post election audit and more broadly to consider and test methods that would be effective for other states and localities as they grapple with this issue. At the same time, our study is also meant to inform the public debate on the accuracy and integrity of the new optical scan voting systems deployed for the first time in the 2006 election.

We hope that our research is a useful tool as election administrators across New Mexico and the country prepare for the upcoming elections in 2008 and beyond. Our detailed examination of the audit process is meant to provide practitioners and stakeholders with valuable information in preparation for their own election audits.

Partners with the project

The Pew Charitable Trusts and the JEHT Foundation Funding for this project was provided by The Pew Charitable Trusts and the JEHT Foundation as part of Pew's Make Voting Work initiative.

Bernalillo County Clerk
One Civic Plaza, NW - 6th Floor
Albuquerque, New Mexico 87102
Phone: 505.468.1207

Office of the Secretary of State
325 Don Gaspar, Suite 300
Santa Fe, New Mexico 87503
Phone: 505.827.3600