Rumor, Reality, and Math Errors in Elections

Summary of Recommendations

1.  Election officials should acknowledge the error in the 2022 audit report and describe operational changes that will prevent these errors from recurring. 

Should election anomalies be ignored unless the wrong person actually takes office? As this text is being written, aircraft from a certain manufacturer have had a string of mishaps, including a window blowing out during flight. No passengers died in these incidents (because, in the example, nobody was seated next to the blow out), but the airline regulator (FAA) initiated a painful series of remedial actions. What would the public think if the FAA ignored aircraft incidents where nobody dies? Are elections different?

2. Organizations critiquing election integrity should vet allegations before they are publicized.

The linked report could show election integrity groups that elections are already subject to quality control. Reporting a math error in an election audit is important, but nobody is claiming that all audits are erroneous. So, it might be helpful for election integrity groups to weed out implausible allegations prior to making public pronouncements.

3. New Mexico and other states could legislate a "standard of proof" to be used when documenting the outcome of elections. The linked report gives an example of such a standard (VVSG).

4. For people with more technical interest, the linked report shows the step responsible for the 2022 anomaly occurred in a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet during a video-recorded public meeting. Microsoft Excel is not approved for use in real-time mission-critical applications, either in general or for elections (per VVSG). The corrective action would be for New Mexico and other states to adopt standards for election software, which would require replacing Excel.

The changes in legislation in recommendations 3 and 4 could help, yet real progress will only occur when elections are treated with the rigor of safety, financial transactions, cyber security, and so forth.