Amended  IN  Assembly  May 29, 2018
Amended  IN  Assembly  May 21, 2018
Amended  IN  Assembly  March 15, 2018

CALIFORNIA LEGISLATURE— 2017–2018 REGULAR SESSION

Assembly Bill No. 2125

Introduced by Assembly Member Quirk

February 08, 2018

An act to add Article 5.5 (commencing with Section 15365) to Chapter 4 of Division 15 of the Elections Code, relating to elections.


LEGISLATIVE COUNSEL'S DIGEST


AB 2125, as amended, Quirk. Election results: risk-limiting audits.
Existing law requires an elections official, during the official canvass of an election in which a voting system is used, to conduct a public manual tally of the ballots cast in 1% of the precincts chosen at random by the elections official, as specified.
This bill would require risk-limiting audits in lieu of the 1% manual tally for certain counties beginning with the March 8, 2022, statewide primary election, and would authorize the use of risk-limiting audits in lieu of the 1% manual tally beginning with the March 3, 2020 statewide primary election. The bill would require the Secretary of State to adopt regulations to implement and administer risk-limiting audits. By imposing new requirements on local elections officials, the bill would impose a state-mandated local program.
The California Constitution requires the state to reimburse local agencies and school districts for certain costs mandated by the state. Statutory provisions establish procedures for making that reimbursement.
This bill would provide that, if the Commission on State Mandates determines that the bill contains costs mandated by the state, reimbursement for those costs shall be made pursuant to the statutory provisions noted above.
Vote: MAJORITY   Appropriation: NO   Fiscal Committee: YES   Local Program: YES  

The people of the State of California do enact as follows:


SECTION 1.

 The Legislature finds and declares all of the following:
(a) Transparent, publicly observable auditing of election results is necessary to ensure effective election administration and justifiable public confidence in elections.
(b) Risk-limiting audits provide efficient and cost-effective scientific quality verification of election results.
(c) By definition, a risk-limiting audit strictly limits the probability that an incorrect electoral outcome will pass the audit without being corrected.

SEC. 2.

 Article 5.5 (commencing with Section 15365) is added to Chapter 4 of Division 15 of the Elections Code, to read:
Article  5.5. Risk-Limiting Audits

15365.
 The purpose of this article is to provide elections officials with a method to conduct a comprehensive end-to-end verification of software used in the post-election audit process.

15366.
 As used in this article, the following terms have the following meanings:
(a) “Ballot-level comparison audit” means a type of risk-limiting audit that involves both of the following steps:
(1) The elections official uses an independent system to verify that the cast vote records created by the voting system or ballots created independent from the tally or ballot marking system yield the same election results as those reported by the voting system.
(2) The elections official compares some or all of those cast vote records to a hand-to-eye, human interpretation of voter markings from the corresponding ballot marked by the voter or the voter verified paper audit trail, as defined by Section 19271.
(b) “Cast vote record” means an auditable document or electronic record that purports to reflect the selections a voter made on a ballot. It lists the contests on the ballot and the voter’s selections in each of those contests.
(c) “Risk-limiting audit” means a post-election process that involves hand-to-eye, human inspection of ballots and ensures that there is no more than a five-percent chance that a full manual tally of all the ballots cast in the contest would show a different winner or winners than the winner or winners reported by the voting system. If this post-election process does lead to a full manual tally, the winner or winners according to that full manual tally replace the winner or winners as reported by the voting system if they differ.

15367.
 (a) (1) Commencing with the statewide primary election held on March 3, 2020, the elections official conducting an election may conduct a risk-limiting audit in place of the one percent manual tally required by Section 15360 during the official canvass of any election in accordance with the requirements of this article.
(2) Commencing with the statewide primary election held on March 8, 2022, and each election thereafter, any elections official using a voting system that was purchased or partially purchased using state or federal funds on or after January 1, 2019, shall conduct a risk-limiting audit in place of the one percent manual tally.
(3) A risk-limiting audit under this section shall include all contests and measures on the ballot. Selection of ballots for the audit shall not occur before the reporting of the results for the contests being audited. The Secretary of State shall define in regulations the vote totals to be used in the comparison audit.
(4) An elections official is in compliance with this section if the elections official conducts a ballot-level comparison audit with a five percent risk limit or a risk-limiting audit with a five percent risk limit using another method for conducting risk-limiting audits as approved by the Secretary of State.
(b) (1) The Secretary of State, in consultation with recognized statistical experts, election verification and integrity stakeholders, voting system manufacturers, and local elections officials, shall adopt regulations to implement and administer this article.
(2) The regulations shall do all of the following:
(A) Require elections officials to establish appropriate audit boards to conduct the risk-limiting audits.
(B) Establish criteria for public education on risk-limiting audits.
(C) Establish procedures to ensure the security of the ballots, the selection of ballots to be inspected during each audit, and the rules governing cast vote records and other data involved in risk-limiting audits.
(D) Establish the calculations and other methods to be used in the audit to determine whether or when the audit of any contest is required to include the examination of more ballots, and to establish calculations and methods to be used in such an escalation, and to determine whether and when the audit of each contest is complete.
(E) Establish procedures and requirements for testing and disclosing the algorithms and source code of any software used by the Secretary of State for the selection of ballots to be included when elections officials conduct risk-limiting audits under this article.
(F) Establish requirements for the content of the risk-limiting audit report required by subdivision (d).
(c) The risk-limiting audit shall be a public and observable process, with the elections official providing at least a five-day public notice of the time and place of both the risk-limiting audit and the selection of the ballots to be used when conducting the risk-limiting audit.
(d) The elections official conducting the risk-limiting audit shall include a report on the results of the risk-limiting audit in the certification of the official canvass of the vote.

SEC. 3.

  If the Commission on State Mandates determines that this act contains costs mandated by the state, reimbursement to local agencies and school districts for those costs shall be made pursuant to Part 7 (commencing with Section 17500) of Division 4 of Title 2 of the Government Code.