Officials roll the dice to find what counties will be audited from Pennsylvania’s primary election

Dennis Owens
·2 min read

(WHTM)– State employees were rolling dice on state time Thursday and the Department of State is gambling it’ll boost voter confidence in last month’s primary election.

Department of State workers were not trying their luck but trying to boost your trust in election results.

There were 20 random numbers rolled by the workers will determine which batch of ballots in which counties will be re-examined from the primary. It’s called a risk-limiting audit, on top of the required 2% audit of every race that every county already conducted.

“And they’re both designed to give folks confidence that the that the outcome is is correct,” Deputy Secretary for Elections and Commissions Jonathan Marks said.

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“Audits are a great thing,” State Rep. Seth Grove (R-York) said. “We love to see audits.”

Grove tried to completely overhaul p-a’s election process a few years ago, but his bill was vetoed by Governor Wolf. He says risk-limiting audits are too limited. Not enough races, counties or ballots scrutinized.

“We just believe they should be more robust,” Grove said. “And a third party entity like the Auditor General’s Office should be doing them.”

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A shot at the Department of State which oversees elections and oversees the audits. Some, like Grove, don’t trust that. The Department of State knows that, so it rolled the dice.

I’m not deluding myself into believing that we’re going to convince every skeptic,” Marks said. “But I think providing this transparency and undertaking these post-election processes prior to certification will give some individuals confidence where they may have had some doubt.”

A longtime election official did say they like the exercise, but for people who really mistrust elections, this isn’t going to change their mind, and for those who do trust elections, this is unnecessary.

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