As one of six co-sponsoring organizations, Verified Voting Foundation is very pleased to announce that the Post-Election Auditing Summit was a success that surpassed the considerable hopes of the team that put it together (American Statistical Association, Brennan Center for Justice, Citizens for Election Integrity Minnesota, Common Cause, Florida Voters Coalition, and Verified Voting Foundation). At present, while some three-fourths of the states have passed requirements for voter-verified paper ballots -- or obtained voter-verified paper ballot systems even without a requirement to do so -- only about one fourth of all states are doing any audits at all. Yet audits provide an essential safety check by allowing vote counts to be publicly validated.

The organizers of this event saw an opportunity to help improve this situation, and worked to pull together 100 participants, eight panels, and much lively discussion over three days in Minneapolis. The result was lots of good energy, creative ideas, and a spirit of collegial information sharing, with attendees from twenty states, including top state election officials from several states, as well as local election officials from a number of states, and the Vice-Chair of the Election Assistance Commission - and just about everyone actively participated.

Though distinct perspectives were presented on some aspects of how audits can and should be done, the Summit seemed to nurture mutual understanding between the state and local election officials, academic experts from statistics, computer science, and political science, and election integrity advocates who participated. The agenda can be viewed here.

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