A comprehensive assessment of the post-election audits in seven swing states in 2024 found that most don’t meet baseline conditions to provide evidence-based election results, nor are they sufficient to act as safeguard against possible errors or tampering.

A new report co-authored by Susan Greenhalgh, Senior Advisor on Election Security for Free Speech For People, and Dr. David Jefferson, a nationally-recognized computer scientist, examined the post-election audits conducted in 2024 in seven swing states in order to consider if the audits provided strong evidence to affirm the computer generated election results. The report found that in most states the audits are insufficient, inadequately documented, and/or untimely, and are unable to provide strong evidence of the correctness of election outcomes. Though most audits were found to be lacking, the report states that, in itself, this does not indicate or suggest the election results were manipulated. 

The report discusses the security risks inherent with recording and counting votes by computer that compel the conduct of robust, pre-certification, post-election audits of paper ballots, primarily marked by hand by the voter. It also debunks prevalent misconceptions about computerized election system security that may diminish the perceived need for audits. The report states, “Despite the commonly repeated assurances that voting equipment cannot be manipulated, it can be. Although there are no verified cases of technical voting systems hacks in the U.S. that succeeded in changing the vote counts, the myths that voting systems are unhackable do not stand up to serious scrutiny. All election results counted by computers should be verified with meaningful, timely, robust, public, and binding post-election audits based on a reliable, voter-verified record of the voters’ selections.”

The report also discusses the voting system breaches that occurred in 2020-2022, in which partisan operatives tied to the Trump campaign accessed voting equipment and/or software from the two largest voting system vendors. The report argues that the unauthorized access to voting systems escalated the security risks to the election and amplified the need for strong audits.   

The report examines essential properties of effective post-election audits and “risk-limiting audits” in order to compare the audits conducted in the seven swing states. It found that some states do not conduct or publish audit results until well-after the election, which negates any potential for the audit to cause a timely investigation into errors or to correct a possible incorrect outcome. Some states provide little evidence of the audit itself, offering only an opaque summary. The three swing states that claim to perform “risk-limiting audits,” Georgia, Nevada and Pennsylvania, do not comply with the requisite conditions for true “risk-limiting audit.” 

The report found that, “Overall, the audits conducted were inadequate to provide strong evidence to confirm the computer-generated results provided by the election equipment used, much of which is running software that has been misappropriated and distributed to partisan actors. Although we do not dispute the outcome of the 2024 presidential election, we find that the audits in the swing states did not provide the necessary strong evidence of its correctness that the public deserves.” 

The full report can be accessed here.