What an election audit is

Intermediate8 min read

An election audit checks whether the reported result is right by comparing it against the paper record. The strongest kind — a risk-limiting audit — hand-counts a random sample of paper ballots, often only a few hundred, and expands only if the sample casts doubt on the reported winner, giving high confidence at low cost.

In this article

An audit is not a recount

The two words get used interchangeably, but they are different tools for different jobs. A recount re-tallies every ballot — the full re-do, usually triggered by a very close margin or a formal challenge. An audit is the lighter, routine check: it examines a portion of the paper record to confirm the reported result is right, before certification, whether or not anyone is disputing it.

Think of it as the difference between a health check and surgery. The audit is the check you run every time as a matter of course; the recount is the intervention you escalate to only if the check finds something wrong. A well-designed audit is what decides whether a recount is needed — rather than waiting for a political fight to demand one.

The risk-limiting audit

The most powerful form is the risk-limiting audit (RLA), and its core idea is genuinely clever: the number of ballots you must hand-count depends on the margin, not on the size of the electorate.

Why? Because the audit is testing an outcome, not every number. If a candidate won by ten points, only a huge, systematic error could have flipped the real winner — and an error that large would almost certainly show up even in a small random sample. If the race was decided by a handful of votes, the audit automatically draws far more ballots. The result is remarkable efficiency: an election of many millions of votes can often be confirmed by hand-counting only a few hundred paper ballots.

What an audit can prove

An RLA has exactly two possible endings, and both are useful:

Confirmation. The sample is consistent with the reported winner to the pre-agreed confidence level, so the audit stops and the outcome is confirmed.
Escalation. The sample is not consistent, so the audit expands — and, if the doubt persists, escalates all the way to a full hand recount.

Notice what an audit does not claim: it does not certify that every individual tally is flawless. It certifies that the outcome is right to a stated level of certainty. That is both honest and sufficient — the thing that needs defending is who won, and by enough.

Audits versus the claims they answer

The real-world value of audits shows up when they meet fraud allegations. After 2020, a claim spread that voting machines in Antrim County, Michigan, had switched votes. Officials responded with a hand count of the paper ballots. The hand audit matched the machine result, and an initial reporting error — quickly caught and corrected — was shown to be human, not fraud.

That is the pattern to internalise. An audit converts an unfalsifiable "the machines were hacked" into a concrete, checkable question: does the paper match? This is the safeguard equivalent of the discipline in how to fact-check a claim — replacing a feeling with a test. And where a mere statistical anomaly can only raise a question, an audit can actually answer it.

Audits need paper

None of this works without a physical record to check against. An audit compares the electronic result to an independent paper trail; remove the paper and there is nothing to audit. That is why the two safeguards are really one idea in two parts: paper creates the evidence, and the audit reads it. Together they are what let an election say, credibly, we checked — and here is how you can check too.

How a risk-limiting audit works, step by step

1
Fix the contest and the reported outcome
Start from the machine-reported result — who won, and by what margin. The audit's job is to test that specific outcome against the paper, not to re-litigate every number.
2
Set the risk limit
Choose in advance the maximum chance you are willing to accept of confirming a wrong outcome — say 5%. This risk limit is the audit's guarantee, agreed before any ballots are drawn.
3
Draw a random sample
Using a public, verifiable random process, select ballots to hand-count. A wide margin needs only a small sample; a razor-thin margin needs a large one — the sample scales with how close the race was, not how many voters there are.
4
Hand-count the sample and compare
People — not machines — read the selected paper ballots and compare them against what the machines recorded. The question is whether the paper is consistent with the reported winner.
5
Stop or escalate
If the sample supports the reported outcome to the required confidence, the audit stops: the result is confirmed. If it does not, the audit expands — drawing more ballots and, if needed, escalating to a full hand recount.

Frequently asked questions

What is the difference between an audit and a recount?

A recount re-tallies every ballot, usually after a very close margin or a formal request. An audit checks a sample of the paper against the reported totals to confirm the outcome is right. An audit is the routine confidence check; a recount is the full re-count it can trigger when the check fails.

How can counting a few hundred ballots verify millions of votes?

Because a risk-limiting audit tests the outcome, not every number. If a candidate won by a wide margin, only a large, consistent error could have changed the winner — and even a small random sample would very likely reveal it. The closer the race, the more ballots the audit draws.

What does an audit actually prove?

It gives strong statistical confidence that the reported winner is correct — or clear evidence that a full recount is needed. It does not prove every individual number is perfect; it proves the outcome is right to a pre-agreed level of certainty, which is what matters for trust in the result.

Do audits need paper ballots?

Yes. An audit compares the electronic result against an independent physical record, so it is only possible where a voter-verified paper trail exists. Without paper there is nothing to audit against — which is why paper and audits are two halves of the same safeguard.

Sources

1.Securing the Vote: Protecting American Democracy (2018) — U.S. National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (2018)
2.Joint Statement: the 2020 election was the most secure in American history — CISA (U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency)

Written by VoteRights EditorialReviewed by VoteRights standards deskLast reviewed July 22, 2026

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