The DeKalb County Election Board and Clerk’s Office volunteered to conduct a post-election audit on its 2024 general election results. DeKalb is one of seven counties on the 2024 general election audit schedule. All seven county election boards voluntarily requested an audit and received audit approval and designation from the Indiana Secretary of State’s Office.

“Conducted by VSTOP (Voting System Technical Oversight Program), these audits ensure and affirm that the election equipment used in this election functioned properly, resulting in correctly reported election outcomes,” DeKalb County Clerk Holly Albright explained.

VSTOP was founded by the Indiana Legislature in 2007 with funding from the Help America Vote Act. While overseen by the secretary of state, VSTOP is hosted at Ball State University in Muncie. VSTOP has conducted 35 post-election audits in 34 Indiana counties.

“Every audit has confirmed the outcome of contests selected for audit, affirming the accurate work of our county election officials and administrators,” according to VSTOP.

“DeKalb County will be the 36th post-election audit and the 35th county completed by VSTOP.”

“A post-election audit means sampling ballots until the sample can show confidence to say that the election outcome was correct as reported,” said Matt Housley, VSTOP election systems audit specialist.

DeKalb County uses MicroVote systems, which are direct recording electronic voting systems. These systems have a Cast Vote Record, which is the digital record of the ballot and a Voter-Verified Paper Audit Trail, which is the paper record of the ballot.

The audit began with a presentation by VSTOP to explain the post-election audit process and answer any questions. A ballot-comparison audit method was used. In a ballot-comparison audit, the digital Cast Vote Record is reviewed and matched with the Voter-Verifiable/Verified Paper Audit Trail to ensure all sampled ballots’ CVR and VVPAT records match 100% for the three contests selected. Contests Selected for audit were U.S. House of Representatives Indiana District 3, Governor of Indiana and DeKalb County Commissioner Central District.

The sample needed was 30 ballots to achieve a 99% confidence level in the voting systems’ functionality. VSTOP and DeKalb County election officials made the decision double the sample size of ballots to increase public trust in the audit process. The updated sample size of 60 ballots were to be inspected for audit.

The sample was drawn in live-time using a random seed number generated by 20 rolls of a 10-sided die.

VSTOP, MicroVote, and DeKalb County election officials began to inspect ballots and record CVR/VVPAT matches for the three contests.

This was continued until all needed ballots were sampled. Sixty-one sampled ballots were inspected for a CVR to VVPAT match for all three contests.

Unofficial results showed that all three contests resulted in 100% CVR/VVPAT match rate.

“The 100% match rate gives us a 99% confidence level that the election equipment used in DeKalb County functioned properly, resulting in correctly reported election outcomes for all three contests,” according to VSTOP.

The confidence level cannot be 100% because that would result in every ballot being sampled, which is a recount, not an audit, VSTOP stated.

The official audit report will be available in mid- to late January.

ARTICLE PRODUCED BY: Kathryn Bassett, The Star (KPC Media), Kendallville, Indiana