COMMONWEALTH OF PENNSYLVANIA HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
HOUSE STATE GOVERNMENT COMMITTEE PUBLIC HEARING
IRVIS OFFICE BUILDING ROOM G-50 HARRISBURG, PENNSYLVANIA
THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 11, 2021 1:30 P.M.
PRESENTATION ON ELECTION OVERSIGHT HEARING: ELECTION AUDITS
BEFORE: HONORABLE PAUL SCHEMEL, HOUSE MAJORITY CHAIRMAN HONORABLE MARGO L. DAVIDSON, HOUSE MINORITY CHAIRWOMAN HONORABLE RUSS DIAMOND HONORABLE MATT DOWLING HONORABLE DAWN KEEFER HONORABLE ANDREW LEWIS HONORABLE RYAN MACKENZIE HONORABLE BRETT MILLER HONORABLE ERIC NELSON HONORABLE JASON ORTITAY HONORABLE CLINT OWLETT HONORABLE FRANK RYAN HONORABLE LOUIS SCHMITT HONORABLE CRAIG STAATS HONORABLE JEFF WHEELAND HONORABLE KRISTINE HOWARD HONORABLE MALCOLM KENYATTA HONORABLE MAUREEN MADDEN HONORABLE BENJAMIN SANCHEZ HONORABLE JARED SOLOMON HONORABLE JOE WEBSTER HONORABLE REGINA YOUNG
2
HOUSE COMMITTEE STAFF PRESENT:
SHERRY EBERLY LEGISLATIVE ADMINISTRATION ASSISTANT
MICHAELE TOTINO EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, STATE GOVERNMENT COMMITTEE
MICHAEL HECKMANN RESEARCH ANALYST
NICHOLAS HIMEBAUGH EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, STATE GOVERNMENT COMMITTEE
* * * * *
Pennsylvania House Of Representatives Commonwealth of Pennsylvania 3
INDEX
TESTIFIERS
* * *
NAME PAGE
TIM DEFOOR AUDITOR GENERAL, OFFICE OF THE AUDITOR GENERAL...... 12
JANET CICCOCIOPPO DIRECTOR OF THE BUREAU OF PERFORMANCE AUDITS...... 12
ANNE SKORIJA DIRECTOR OF THE BUREAU OF INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY AUDITS...... 12
HOPE VERELST DEPUTY CHIEF CLERK, DIRECTOR OF ELECTIONS/VOTER REGISTRATION, SULLIVAN COUNTY...... 46
THAD HALL ELECTIONS DIRECTOR, MERCER COUNTY...... 49
JONATHAN MARKS DEPUTY SECRETARY FOR ELECTIONS AND COMMISSIONS...... 88
LIZ HOWARD SENIOR COUNSEL, BRENNAN CENTER FOR JUSTICE'S DEMOCRACY PROGRAM...... 88
SUBMITTED WRITTEN TESTIMONY
* * *
(See submitted written testimony and handouts online.)
4
1 P R O C E E D I N G S
2 * * *
3 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN SCHEMEL: Very good. I think
4 we're ready to begin.
5 Good afternoon. Welcome to this public hearing
6 of the Pennsylvania House State Government Committee.
7 Today we will be hearing testimony concerning election
8 audits. I'm Representative Paul Schemel from Franklin
9 County. I'm pinch hitting for Chairman Seth Grove of the
10 majority chair. But I'm pleased to be here with the very
11 capable hands of co-chair Margo Davidson.
12 And Chairwoman, if I get off track, please just
13 give me a gentle kick under the desk.
14 This is the third hearing of 14, where this
15 committee will take a deep dive into the Pennsylvania
16 Election Law of 1937 and explore how elections are
17 administered in the Commonwealth. The underlying objective
18 of these hearings is to inform the public and this
19 committee, so we may facilitate election changes, which
20 ensure our voting process is designed to empower voters to
21 select winners, not the process selecting winners.
22 While the 2020 General Election has been
23 extensively debated and litigated, the General Assembly has
24 an important constitutional obligation to conduct
25 legislative oversight of the laws we pass and the agencies
5
1 which administer those laws. Specifically, House Rule 45
2 states, "Each standing committee or subcommittee of the
3 House shall exercise continuous watchfulness of the
4 execution by the administrative agencies concerning any
5 laws, the subject matter of which is within the
6 jurisdiction of such committee or subcommittee; and, for
7 that purpose, shall study all pertinent reports and data
8 submitted to the House by the agencies in the executive
9 branch of the government."
10 Today's hearing is focused on election audits.
11 In 2019, the Pennsylvania Office of Auditor General
12 executed a performance audit on the SURE system. The
13 Committee heard testimony concerning that audit at its
14 hearing two weeks ago. State law also requires counties to
15 conduct post-election audits, commonly referred to as two
16 percent audits. Pursuant to recently initiated pilot
17 programs, 63 out of Pennsylvania's 67 counties conducted
18 risk-limiting audits. We will hear testimony concerning
19 these audits today.
20 Post-election audits are an important tool used
21 to ensure voters have confidence in their election system,
22 and to guide counties in improving their processes. In
23 addition to being efficient, audits must be independent if
24 they are to be trusted to identify problems and improve
25 processes.
6
1 We have three panels for today's hearing. Panel
2 1 is the Office of the Auditor General, Panel 2 are county
3 officials and election officers, and Panel 3 is the
4 Department of State. These three panels will explore our
5 current program of election audits and help the general
6 public and the members of the State Government Committee to
7 better understand our current program of audits as well as
8 recommended changes being advanced by the Department of
9 State and the Governor's Office.
10 Chairwoman Davidson, do you have any opening
11 comments?
12 MINORITY CHAIRWOMAN DAVIDSON: Thank you.
13 First of all, I want to wish my colleague well,
14 Chairman Seth Grove, who according to published reports, is
15 suffering from COVID symptoms and is quarantining. And so
16 it just brings to light the fact that even during the
17 election we were dealing with a deadly pandemic that, as of
18 today's date, has killed over 400,000 Americans, many
19 Pennsylvanians -- tens of thousands of Pennsylvanians. And
20 so recognizing the deadly nature of the disease and its
21 contagious nature, we are certainly concerned for our
22 colleague, Chairman Grove, as well as the other members of
23 the General Assembly who may have been similarly exposed.
24 And so I want to commend the election officials
25 that we heard from last time, who should have further
7
1 instilled confidence in an already settled matter, which is
2 the 2020 election. I am certainly confident, as well as
3 the courts are confident, as well as the certification in
4 all 50 states including territories are confident. The
5 congress is confident, both the House and the state -- the
6 House and the Senate are all confident that the election
7 was fair and it was conducted in the way that it should've
8 been conducted, and the results are clear.
9 As we go through the process of learning just how
10 pervasive the big lie was regarding the 2020 election and
11 the insurrection that it caused at the Capitol, we in the
12 General Assembly continue to go down this same route. But
13 I'm sure today we'll hear further evidence of the fact that
14 the election was accurate, it was fair, it was free, it was
15 uniform, and the results are what the results are,
16 regardless of what side. There's always an election where
17 there's winners and there's losers, and the losers are
18 never happy about it.
19 So I thank you for this time, and I look forward
20 to the testimony. And I hope, at some point, folks will
21 move on past 2020.
22 Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
23 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN SCHEMEL: Thank you,
24 Chairwoman Davidson.
25 A few matters of housekeeping. We have members
8
1 and testifiers in attendance virtually as well as the
2 public viewing via live stream. Due to Sunshine Law
3 requirements, if either of these platforms experience
4 technical difficulties, we will pause the meeting in order
5 to correct the issues.
6 For the members participating virtually, please
7 mute your microphones. Please know, when you speak, we all
8 hear you. If you want to be recognized for comments,
9 please use the raise hand function. After being
10 recognized, but prior to speaking, please turn on your
11 camera and unmute your microphone. After you've completed
12 your question, please mute your microphone.
13 My goal is to allow as many members as possible
14 to ask questions this afternoon. So please limit your
15 questions to one person for a maximum of five minutes.
16 This should provide enough time for further rounds of
17 questions.
18 Also, this hearing is about the election audits.
19 Please keep your inquiries on other topics until all
20 members' questions have been asked concerning election
21 guidance.
22 We are holding 11 more hearings on specific
23 election topics. If you have a question which falls under
24 one of those hearings, please hold it for that specific
25 hearing.
9
1 We're going to do introduction of the members.
2 This is particularly important since we have individuals
3 who are in attendance virtually, as well as those who are
4 here. So for the benefit of those in the room, we will
5 begin with members in the room, and why don't I start to my
6 right?
7 REPRESENTATIVE WHEELAND: Thank you.
8 Representative Jeff Wheeland, 83rd District, Lycoming
9 County.
10 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN SCHEMEL: Very good. And
11 then, up here with Representative Young?
12 REPRESENTATIVE YOUNG: Representative Young,
13 District 185, Philadelphia and Delaware Counties.
14 REPRESENTATIVE KENYATTA: Representative
15 Kenyatta, 181st District.
16 REPRESENTATIVE MILLER: Representative Brett
17 Miller, 41st District, Lancaster County.
18 REPRESENTATIVE STAATS: Craig Staats,
19 representing the 145th District in Bucks County.
20 REPRESENTATIVE KEEFER: Representative Dawn
21 Keefer, 92nd District, York and Cumberland Counties.
22 REPRESENTATIVE DIAMOND: Representative Russ
23 Diamond, 102nd District, Lebanon County.
24 REPRESENTATIVE RYAN: Representative Frank Ryan,
25 101st District, Lebanon County.
10
1 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN SCHEMEL: Thank you. And we
2 have members who are attending virtually. I don't know if
3 we have -- and please recall, those of you attending
4 virtually, that you need to mute your microphone. Those
5 members who are attending virtually, if you'd like to
6 unmute your microphone and introduce yourselves one at a
7 time.
8 REPRESENTATIVE NELSON: Representative Nelson,
9 Westmoreland County, 57th District.
10 REPRESENTATIVE MACKENZIE: Good afternoon.
11 Representative Ryan Mackenzie from the 134th District in
12 portions of Lehigh and Berks Counties. Thank you.
13 REPRESENTATIVE ORTITAY: Representative Jason
14 Ortitay, 46th District, Allegheny and Washington Counties.
15 REPRESENTATIVE OWLETT: Representative Owlett,
16 68th District, all of Tioga, part of Bradford, and part of
17 Potter County.
18 REPRESENTATIVE SOLOMON: Jared Solomon, 202nd,
19 Northeast Philly.
20 REPRESENTATIVE LEWIS: Representative Andrew
21 Lewis, right here in Dauphin County, 105th District. Good
22 to be here.
23 REPRESENTATIVE MADDEN: Representative Maureen
24 Madden, 115th District, Monroe County.
25 REPRESENTATIVE WEBSTER: Good afternoon --
11
1 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN SCHEMEL: Okay. Please turn
2 off your microphones if you're not speaking.
3 REPRESENTATIVE WEBSTER: Good afternoon,
4 everyone. I'm Joe Webster, Montgomery County, House
5 District 150.
6 REPRESENTATIVE SCHMITT: Representative Lou
7 Schmitt, 79th District, City of Altoona and a portion of
8 Blair County.
9 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN SCHEMEL: And do we have any
10 other members attending virtually?
11 REPRESENTATIVE HOWARD: Hi. It's Kristine Howard
12 from the 167th in Chester County.
13 REPRESENTATIVE SANCHEZ: Hi everybody.
14 Representative Ben Sanchez from Montgomery County.
15 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN SCHEMEL: Any others attending
16 virtually?
17 Okay. Very well. Thank you all so much.
18 REPRESENTATIVE RYAN: Mr. Chairman, to the left.
19 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN SCHEMEL: Oh, I'm sorry.
20 Please forgive me.
21 REPRESENTATIVE DOWLING: Representative Matt
22 Dowling from the 51st District in Fayette and Somerset
23 Counties.
24 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN SCHEMEL: Very well. Thank
25 you.
12
1 For our Panel 1 testifiers, we have the newly
2 sworn-in Auditor General Tim DeFoor.
3 Congratulations, General DeFoor. We're glad to
4 have you here with us today.
5 For the public's knowledge, the Auditor General's
6 audit for the SURE system was completed under General
7 DeFoor's predecessor. Regardless, we're glad to have you
8 and glad that you're able to join us, together with
9 Director of Bureau of Performance Audits, Janet
10 Ciccocioppo, and Director of Bureau of Information
11 Technology Audits, Anne Skorija.
12 New to the House operating rules is the provision
13 of swearing in testifiers for standing committees, so I'd
14 ask the Panel 1 testifiers, if you would please raise your
15 right hands?
16 (Parties sworn)
17 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN SCHEMEL: Very well. Thank you
18 very much.
19 General DeFoor, if you have any opening remarks,
20 the floor is yours.
21 AUDITOR GENERAL DEFOOR: Yes. Yes I do,
22 Representative Schemel. And please give my regards to
23 Chairman Grove for a speedy recovery.
24 So good afternoon, everyone, Representative
25 Schemel, Chairwoman Davidson. Thank you for inviting me to
13
1 appear before you and your fellow members of the House
2 State Government Committee today to discuss the Department
3 of Auditor General's audit of the Department of State's
4 Statewide Uniform Registry of Electors, which is better
5 known as the SURE Voter Registry System.
6 I am joined here today by two of my team, who are
7 highly involved in conducting this audit. Janet
8 Ciccocioppo is the Director of the Bureau of Performance
9 Audits, and Anne Skorija is the Director of the Bureau of
10 Information Technology Audits.
11 Just three short weeks ago, I was sworn in as
12 Pennsylvania's 52nd Auditor General. I promise to deliver
13 on accountability, integrity, and transparency, because
14 that is what Pennsylvania tax dollars expect and deserve
15 from their government in Harrisburg.
16 While this audit was conducted and released by my
17 predecessor, I am happy to be here today in the spirit of
18 public service and to assist in any way that I can. A
19 performance audit is designed to gauge whether or not
20 government programs and activities are meeting stated goals
21 and objectives, and if tax dollars are being spent
22 efficiently and effectively. I want to be very clear about
23 the scope of this audit; specifically, what it covered, and
24 also, what it did not cover. The audit focused solely on
25 the state's Statewide Uniform Registry of Electors and was
14
1 not a post-election review. It looked at our voter
2 registry system, as opposed to voting machines or the
3 counting of the votes.
4 Although it is the individual Pennsylvania
5 counties who control the actual voter registration records
6 contained in the SURE system, the state is required by
7 federal law to ensure that the data held by the SURE system
8 is accurate and secure. Our primary focus was on the
9 Department's efforts to ensure the accuracy of voter
10 registration records. As stated previously, the audit
11 period covered January 1, 2016 through April 16th, 2019,
12 and was conducted at the request of the Department of
13 State.
14 At the audit's conclusion, there were several
15 findings by this office and 50 recommendations for the
16 Department of State to strengthen its policies and
17 management controls. A very brief overview of some of the
18 key findings include weakness in the voter registration
19 application process and the maintenance of voter records in
20 the SURE system, which resulted in instances of potential
21 inaccurate voter record information.
22 Data analysis identified tens of thousands of
23 potential duplicate and inaccurate voting records. The
24 Department of State must continue to implement information
25 technology security practices and information technology
15
1 controls to protect the SURE system and ensure the
2 reliability of voter registration records.
3 Incorporating edit checks and other improvements
4 into the design of the replacement system for SURE would
5 reduce data error records and improve accuracy.
6 I should note that it was by law, the Department
7 of State did get back to us within six months after the
8 audit was released to inform us that they will continue to
9 upgrade software and streamline their registry maintenance.
10 The entire report as well as the follow-up response to us
11 are available on my department's website, for which we will
12 be happy to provide the link.
13 Thank you, and we'll be glad to answer your
14 questions on the findings and the recommendations of the
15 SURE audit.
16 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN SCHEMEL: Thank you, General
17 DeFoor.
18 With regard to Director Ciccocioppo and Skorija,
19 do you have any opening comments, or will you be responding
20 collectively to questions?
21 MS. SKORIJA: No --
22 MS. CICCOCIOPPO: (Indiscernible - simultaneous
23 speech) will be responding to questions.
24 MS. SKORIJA: I also have no opening comments or
25 questions.
16
1 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN SCHEMEL: General DeFoor, you
2 seemed to be reading off of written remarks, which is
3 customary. Would it be possible for you to send those to
4 us just for our records after the hearing today?
5 AUDITOR GENERAL DEFOOR: Oh, I'm sorry. I was
6 still muted. Absolutely, I will provide this to you.
7 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN SCHEMEL: Very well. Thank you
8 all very much. Then we'll start with questions from
9 members.
10 Representative Kenyatta, you have a question?
11 REPRESENTATIVE KENYATTA: Thank you. And before
12 we get started, I just want to say my heart is with
13 Chairman Grove and wishing him a speedy recovery.
14 To General DeFoor, first of all, congratulations
15 on your election.
16 AUDITOR GENERAL DEFOOR: Thank you.
17 REPRESENTATIVE KENYATTA: And my question is to
18 you, Mr. General, or to any of your staff on the call. Yes
19 or no, do you feel like the election we just had, of which
20 you were on the ballot, was a free and fair election that
21 Pennsylvania should have confidence in?
22 AUDITOR GENERAL DEFOOR: That's a question that I
23 really can't give an answer. And the reason being, I was
24 just prepared to answer questions with regard to the SURE
25 system, and I don't want to discuss anything that happened
17
1 after the audit and of the election of 2020. I believe my
2 election was fair. As far as anybody else's election,
3 that's a conversation that you would have to have with
4 them, but I haven't heard any complaint with regard to my
5 specific election.
6 REPRESENTATIVE KENYATTA: So your election was
7 fair, but you're not sure about the rest?
8 AUDITOR GENERAL DEFOOR: Well, you would have to
9 contact them. I'm not prepared to ask any -- I'm not
10 prepared to answer for anybody else, just myself.
11 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN SCHEMEL: Just for the
12 information for the members, I'll remind everyone that the
13 subject of this hearing is audits of the various natures
14 that we have, so if we could just relate our questions to
15 that subject exclusively.
16 REPRESENTATIVE KENYATTA: Well, thank you, Mr.
17 Chairman.
18 I think if you, as the Auditor General, are not
19 sure about whether or not, and cannot answer a
20 straightforward question about whether or not the
21 elections, of which you were also on the ballot, was fair,
22 I find that deeply problematic.
23 UNIDENTIFIED VOICE: Mr. Chairman --
24 REPRESENTATIVE KENYATTA: Excuse me.
25 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN SCHEMEL: Representative
18
1 Kenyatta --
2 REPRESENTATIVE KENYATTA: Excuse me.
3 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN SCHEMEL: The Auditor General
4 was newly sworn in post-election.
5 REPRESENTATIVE KENYATTA: I understand that. And
6 thank you, Mr. Chairman. He answered the question about
7 whether or not his election was fair and he said yes. And
8 so I'm asking him did he think every other person that was
9 on the ballot, whether or not that was fair. And whether
10 or not Pennsylvanians should have confidence.
11 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN SCHEMEL: Thank you,
12 Representative. The subject of this is audits. The
13 Auditor General was not in office at the time of the
14 November 3rd election. He's here to speak about the audit
15 that was performed on the SURE system prior to the November
16 3rd election. So I would think that that's outside of the
17 boundaries of the discussion of the hearing today.
18 REPRESENTATIVE KENYATTA: Well, that's -- thank
19 you, Mr. Chairman.
20 As the Auditor General, for the benefit of
21 Pennsylvanians who are watching right now, if he has
22 questions about the election, then that would be big news.
23 If he doesn't have questions about the integrity of the
24 election, that would also be big news.
25 And I would also like to say that members who are
19
1 in this meeting still not wearing masks should probably not
2 be yelling, further spreading particulates into the air.
3 And with that I'll stop.
4 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN SCHEMEL: Thank you.
5 REPRESENTATIVE KENYATTA: You're laughing, and
6 that's the same thing.
7 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN SCHEMEL: Representative Ryan?
8 REPRESENTATIVE RYAN: Mr. Chairman, thank you so
9 much.
10 And Auditor General, thank you so much. My
11 question: In the Auditor General report dated December
12 13th, 2019, the summary report discussed eight audit
13 objectives, and the question I have is, do you feel that
14 those audit objectives, if accomplished, would've presented
15 a reasonable understanding of the SURE system and it's
16 vulnerabilities?
17 AUDITOR GENERAL DEFOOR: I'm going to have to
18 defer that question to either Janet or Anne, who are
19 involved with the daily activities of the audit. So if
20 they could unmute their buttons?
21 MS. SKORIJA: Jan, I think you could
22 (indiscernible - background noise) better to do that than
23 me.
24 MS. CICCOCIOPPO: Okay. Yes. I think it was a
25 very thorough audit, as much as we could do during that
20
1 time period, and I think the objectives were certainly
2 thorough.
3 REPRESENTATIVE RYAN: The audit -- first of all,
4 thank you so much. And I read the entire report, and I
5 want to commend you as a CPA on the thoroughness of it
6 relative to generally accepted governmental auditing
7 standards. And in the audit conclusions, it stated you
8 couldn't complete audit objectives one, three, and six.
9 What were the primary reasons why those audit objectives
10 could not be accomplished?
11 MS. CICCOCIOPPO: There were two scope
12 limitations as defined under auditing standards. The first
13 one was access to other auditors' reports and security
14 information. And the second one was lack of source
15 documents to support the sample of registered voters.
16 REPRESENTATIVE RYAN: And then my last question
17 would be, the Auditor General report indicated that the
18 Auditor General was not able to conclude that there was
19 reasonable assurance that the SURE system is secure and
20 that the Pennsylvania voter registration records are
21 complete, accurate, and in compliance with applicable laws
22 and regulations. Was that due to the scope limitation, or
23 were there other issues involved as well?
24 MS. CICCOCIOPPO: That's --
25 REPRESENTATIVE RYAN: And thank you again for
21
1 your time.
2 MS. CICCOCIOPPO: You're welcome. That was due
3 to the scope limitations.
4 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN SCHEMEL: Very good. Thank
5 you, Representative.
6 Representative Ortitay?
7 REPRESENTATIVE ORTITAY: Thank you, Mr. Chairman,
8 and thank all of you for being here today.
9 What did your office learn about the election
10 audits from this audit, and if you were to tackle a similar
11 audit in the future, would you change your methodology or
12 your approach to election audits?
13 AUDITOR GENERAL DEFOOR: Well, one of the things
14 that I would definitely do, considering that the
15 information was obtained from the individual counties, you
16 would have to work very closely with the county board of
17 elections because they're the ones who run the election and
18 they're the ones who house all the information. All the
19 information that is within the SURE system comes from the
20 counties. So you have to work very, very closely with the
21 counties. That's where I would begin.
22 REPRESENTATIVE ORTITAY: Okay. And just
23 previously answered, they talk about access as being an
24 issue. I noticed through looking through the report that
25 the Department of State had provided an affidavit from the
22
1 chief info security officer. Is that something that is
2 acceptable for government auditing standards?
3 AUDITOR GENERAL DEFOOR: Again, I'm going to
4 defer that one to the two individuals that were involved
5 with the audit; either to Janet or to Anne.
6 MS. SKORIJA: This sound issues --
7 Janet, are you able to answer that?
8 MS. CICCOCIOPPO: Anne, go ahead.
9 MS. SKORIJA: Normally, an affidavit, while
10 providing a certain level of evidence, is not as -- does
11 not provide the same level of evidence as being able to
12 review system settings ourselves or reviewing documents.
13 And so we were not able to place as much reliance on that
14 as we would've liked.
15 REPRESENTATIVE ORTITAY: Okay. Thank you very
16 much. I appreciate it.
17 Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
18 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN SCHEMEL: Thank you,
19 Representative.
20 Representative Young?
21 REPRESENTATIVE YOUNG: How does PA compare to the
22 other states in the usage of risk-limiting audits?
23 AUDITOR GENERAL DEFOOR: That I can't answer
24 because we haven't compared ourselves to other states with
25 regard to this one specific type of audit. I mean, if
23
1 that's information I can find out, I could definitely find
2 out for you. But that's something that I believe normally
3 isn't done, comparisons to other states.
4 Now, there are -- whenever audits are performed,
5 there's always a set of standards -- Yellow Book standards
6 that we always try to follow. But as far as comparisons to
7 other states, that's something that we normally don't do
8 because of everybody across the country has a certain set
9 of auditing standards that we all follow. And those are
10 normally the Yellow Book standards.
11 REPRESENTATIVE YOUNG: Thank you.
12 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN SCHEMEL: Thank you,
13 Representative.
14 Representative Solomon has a question.
15 REPRESENTATIVE SOLOMON: Good afternoon, General.
16 Thanks for being with us.
17 AUDITOR GENERAL DEFOOR: Yes. Thank you.
18 REPRESENTATIVE SOLOMON: As you mentioned, there
19 are 50 recommendations. And I was particularly interested
20 in the report that called for a change to the governance
21 structure of the SURE system. Would that be one of the
22 recommendations that you would want us to follow through
23 with?
24 AUDITOR GENERAL DEFOOR: Well, the one thing that
25 I can say is that a new vendor has been selected, and I
24
1 believe the Department of State has selected a new vendor
2 for SURE system. And I believe that is currently being
3 worked on now, if that's what your question was based on.
4 REPRESENTATIVE SOLOMON: No. I really
5 didn't know the answer to that one. Which is the vendor
6 that was chosen?
7 AUDITOR GENERAL DEFOOR: That, I don't know. I
8 can get you the information following this meeting.
9 But also -- and my staff may have a better idea
10 than I do -- that the recommendations that were also
11 included in this report were also some of the things that
12 were inside the RFP for a new SURE system. And the
13 Department of State may have better -- more detailed
14 information with regard to that because they are the one
15 who contracted for the new system.
16 REPRESENTATIVE SOLOMON: So General, of the 50
17 recommendations that came from your predecessor, how many
18 would you say you agree with? How many do you have an
19 issue with? And if you could be as specific as you can.
20 AUDITOR GENERAL DEFOOR: Well, I really can't say
21 which ones I agree with and which ones I don't agree with.
22 Findings are findings. And again, I wasn't part of the
23 original audit. But at this point, I have no reason to
24 believe -- or I don't have any reason to say that, well,
25 this audit -- excuse me, this finding was unnecessary or
25
1 this one was, unless I am part of the audit from the very
2 beginning to the very end, which, of course, I wasn't. The
3 audit was completed, you know, long before I got here.
4 REPRESENTATIVE SOLOMON: And General, of the 50
5 recommendations -- you had mentioned the Department of
6 State put out an RFP. Of those 50, with the new vendor
7 coming into place, how many of those recommendations will
8 sort of be settled, done deal? And how many do you believe
9 this committee and the Legislature would still need to
10 address?
11 AUDITOR GENERAL DEFOOR: Well, if you could
12 define what you mean by settled and done deal? You would
13 think that all the recommendations -- you would hope that
14 all the recommendations in which were inside the audit
15 report would be followed up on, whether that -- whether or
16 not that can be contained within the new software, or
17 whether or not it can be contained with regard to the
18 processes once the software is up and running.
19 So we're talking about two different things.
20 We're talking about the internal workings of the software,
21 which has one set of standards. But then we're talking
22 about how that information that goes into the system and
23 the information that's extracted from the system. So we're
24 talking about different sets of standards, if that makes
25 any sense.
26
1 REPRESENTATIVE SOLOMON: No. Yeah. I'm just
2 trying to get at, you know, we're -- as the chairman in our
3 original -- our first meeting pointed out, we're trying to
4 look into the future and make our election system better.
5 AUDITOR GENERAL DEFOOR: Right. Right.
6 REPRESENTATIVE SOLOMON: So I -- if there's an
7 ongoing dialogue, General, in terms of, you know, we start
8 with 50 recommendations from your predecessor. We now have
9 this new system that's going to be in place. Do you think
10 that misses the mark? Do you think it's spot on? And
11 then, what do you believe our role is as a committee in
12 order to meet any potential issues that you think still
13 need to be addressed?
14 AUDITOR GENERAL DEFOOR: Well, the best way to do
15 it is to perform audits of the new system, of what's going
16 into it, how it's being built, and how it's being used.
17 And that's the only way that you're going to determine
18 whether or not either these 50 recommendations or other
19 recommendations or ideas that you may have are, in fact,
20 satisfying whatever the needs should be.
21 REPRESENTATIVE SOLOMON: Thank you.
22 AUDITOR GENERAL DEFOOR: So you would have to
23 constantly review and audit the entire process.
24 REPRESENTATIVE SOLOMON: Thank you.
25 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN SCHEMEL: Thank you,
27
1 Representative.
2 Representative Nelson?
3 REPRESENTATIVE NELSON: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
4 And congratulations, General. Outstanding
5 accomplishment. Looking forward to working with you.
6 AUDITOR GENERAL DEFOOR: Thank you.
7 REPRESENTATIVE NELSON: My question is -- I'm
8 going back to the audit itself, and the two representatives
9 that are with you cited lack of source documents, you know,
10 which created some definite challenges within the audit.
11 Can you touch on, or can they touch on, better insight and
12 experience that they were able to gain despite the lack of
13 source documents into Pennsylvania's election process, the
14 SURE system specifically?
15 AUDITOR GENERAL DEFOOR: Yeah. And the question
16 I will defer to them.
17 REPRESENTATIVE NELSON: Yes.
18 MS. SKORIJA: Well, we certainly were able to
19 gain insight into how hard each of the counties work to
20 maintain the system and how hard the Department of State
21 works to maintain the system, and we really respect that.
22 We learned an awful lot about the data, the structures of
23 how it works, and it was definitely a very worthwhile
24 process. It was disappointing that we couldn't see as many
25 source documents as we wanted to, but we were able to
28
1 generate very good findings despite.
2 REPRESENTATIVE NELSON: Yeah. When you touch on
3 the source documents, I was struck in the report at the
4 beginning that almost 70 percent of the voter records you
5 were unable to verify because of, as you say, lack of
6 source documents. I think specifically, it was a specific
7 limitation caused by lack of cooperation and failure to
8 provide -- I'm reading from the audit -- necessary
9 information from the Department of State, PennDOT, and
10 selected county election offices, specifically, denial of
11 access to critical documents or excessive redaction.
12 As the Department moves forward, is there any
13 accountability when a county, or let's say, PennDOT, or the
14 Department of State denies your office even the opportunity
15 to verify some of your audit requests? Is there any
16 accountability for people when they refuse to participate?
17 AUDITOR GENERAL DEFOOR: I mean, I'll go ahead
18 and answer this question. There's none that I'm aware of.
19 There's none. And the one thing that I want everybody to
20 keep in mind is, we've talked about us not receiving
21 information with regard to this audit. And if this audit
22 is going to be used to strengthen any type of process, then
23 whatever we do, it may be wrong because we don't have all
24 of the information. In order to do something correctly, in
25 order to do something thoroughly, we have to have all the
29
1 information. And in this case, that didn't happen.
2 REPRESENTATIVE NELSON: I really appreciate your
3 frank disclosure of the challenge that rests before you.
4 And do you feel that maybe legislative improvements could
5 be made to ensure that your office is able to access those.
6 I was surprised that you couldn't get to what you wanted to
7 see because that is your role; that's your function for the
8 State of Pennsylvania. And would that be helpful
9 moving -- whether it's yourself or the Auditor General
10 afterward -- to be able to have a little bit more teeth in
11 order to ensure you can see the things that you want to?
12 AUDITOR GENERAL DEFOOR: Yes.
13 REPRESENTATIVE NELSON: Thank you.
14 Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
15 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN SCHEMEL: Very well. Thank
16 you, Representative..
17 Representative Madden?
18 REPRESENTATIVE MADDEN: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
19 I'd like to follow up on one of my colleague's
20 questions. She asked, how did we do in Pennsylvania
21 compared to other states in this election. And I did read
22 in the report that you looked at Arizona and Michigan, at
23 their election, as a tool for effective elections. So did
24 you compare our election to those two states? What was the
25 purpose of looking into those elections? And you know, how
30
1 did that help in auditing the Pennsylvania election?
2 AUDITOR GENERAL DEFOOR: Again, I'm going to
3 defer to Janet and Anne for that, seeing that they were the
4 ones who actually performed the audit.
5 MS. SKORIJA: I might have to get back to you,
6 specifically, on the comparison to -- let me -- to the
7 other states. I do know that we contacted some other
8 states, but not necessarily Michigan and Arizona. I
9 remember talking to another state about being given access
10 to certain security reports, but I'm sorry, I'm going to
11 have to get back to you on that.
12 REPRESENTATIVE MADDEN: Okay. The reason I ask
13 is because very specifically in the reports that I'm
14 reading, the attachments I got, it said that you looked at
15 effective states, Michigan and Arizona -- effective
16 elections in the states Michigan and Arizona. So that's
17 why I was wondering. It might have been an insight into my
18 colleague's question as to how did Pennsylvania do.
19 And then I have another question. In the audit,
20 did you -- there were a handful of counties that decided
21 they weren't going to count their ballots early, until the
22 day -- I believe we could've started counting them the day
23 of -- the morning of. And a handful of counties decided
24 that they weren't going to start until the day of -- the
25 day after. Did you find that there was any lag time in how
31
1 long it took to get the results of the votes for the
2 counties that didn't count the day of the election when
3 they were legally allowed to?
4 AUDITOR GENERAL DEFOOR: Anne or Janet?
5 MS. SKORIJA: Our audit of the SURE system was of
6 voter registration records. We did not look at the votes.
7 REPRESENTATIVE MADDEN: Okay.
8 MS. SKORIJA: And we didn't look at the election.
9 REPRESENTATIVE MADDEN: Okay. Thank you.
10 MS. SKORIJA: You're welcome.
11 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN SCHEMEL: Very good. Thank
12 you, Representative.
13 Representative Staats?
14 REPRESENTATIVE STAATS: Thank you, Chairman.
15 Thank you to our panel.
16 And General DeFoor, welcome to your new position.
17 We certainly look forward to working with you and your
18 office.
19 And my question is this, and I think parts of it
20 were talked about, but I'm still not real clear. So my
21 question is, to your knowledge, has the Auditor General's
22 office received any request or asked any questions from the
23 Department of State about post-election audits?
24 AUDITOR GENERAL DEFOOR: We have not received
25 any. Not to my knowledge. No.
32
1 REPRESENTATIVE STAATS: Has your office been
2 invited to participate in their post-election work group?
3 AUDITOR GENERAL DEFOOR: Not to my knowledge.
4 No.
5 REPRESENTATIVE STAATS: And my last question
6 would be, would your office be able to or permitted to
7 provide the post-election audit group assistance or
8 technical support?
9 AUDITOR GENERAL DEFOOR: That's something that if
10 it came to me, I would discuss not only with my chief of
11 staff, but my legislative director and my legal office.
12 REPRESENTATIVE STAATS: But do you know if you'd
13 be permitted to?
14 AUDITOR GENERAL DEFOOR: No. I do not.
15 REPRESENTATIVE STAATS: Thank you. I appreciate
16 that.
17 That's it, Mr. Chairman.
18 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN SCHEMEL: Thank you,
19 Representative.
20 Representative Lewis?
21 REPRESENTATIVE LEWIS: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
22 Good afternoon, General DeFoor, and thanks for
23 being here to testify just a few weeks into the job here.
24 AUDITOR GENERAL DEFOOR: Thank you.
25 REPRESENTATIVE LEWIS: And also, I want to just
33
1 say -- so prior to becoming Auditor General of
2 Pennsylvania, you were the controller for our home county
3 here of Dauphin County, where you did a tremendous job for
4 our county. In this capacity, I'm wondering, did you get
5 the chance to engage -- or your office, in any of the audit
6 work for the county elections office process or assist in
7 any of the county's statutorily required two percent audit?
8 Did you get a chance to engage in any of that work while
9 you were controller?
10 AUDITOR GENERAL DEFOOR: No. My office was not
11 made aware of the two percent audit. We weren't invited to
12 participate in it.
13 REPRESENTATIVE LEWIS: Fair enough.
14 AUDITOR GENERAL DEFOOR: And I'm not sure of any
15 other counties who have.
16 REPRESENTATIVE LEWIS: Okay. I was -- fair
17 enough. And if you had, I was going to ask if there was
18 any lessons learned from those audits that could benefit us
19 today. But I will pass.
20 Mr. Chairman, can I ask one other question, being
21 that the Auditor General didn't participate in those
22 things? Can I pivot and ask another question?
23 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN SCHEMEL: Representative, I'd
24 just remind you that as long as it is pertinent to the
25 subject of audits, which is the purview of this particular
34
1 hearing.
2 REPRESENTATIVE LEWIS: It is.
3 General DeFoor, my question here has to do with
4 independence of audits. And the U.S. Government
5 Accountability Office's government auditing standards
6 consider independence of an auditor to be a foundational
7 principle of good practice. And I just -- can you explain,
8 kind of for the record, based on your expertise and
9 understanding and your experiences, the value of
10 independence to an audit process in general?
11 AUDITOR GENERAL DEFOOR: You can't be swayed by
12 one side or another because if you're not independent, then
13 you're not doing your job. And when you swear on the Bible
14 to be either a controller -- county controller or Auditor
15 General, you have to be completely 100 percent independent.
16 That's your job.
17 REPRESENTATIVE LEWIS: Excellent.
18 That's all I have, Mr. Chairman.
19 General DeFoor, thank you. And thanks for your
20 service.
21 AUDITOR GENERAL DEFOOR: Thank you,
22 Representative.
23 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN SCHEMEL: Thank you,
24 Representative.
25 Representative Miller?
35
1 REPRESENTATIVE MILLER: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
2 And thank you, panelists. I appreciate it.
3 General DeFoor, I have a question, if I may. You
4 had mentioned that the -- there was -- because of the
5 limited provision of documents -- or I guess you and your
6 panelists -- because of the limited provision of documents,
7 that made the report potentially incomplete because you
8 couldn't have all the documents. The Department of State
9 did not provide those to you and so the report may be
10 complete.
11 The question I have for you. The final statement
12 from the former Auditor General, Eugene DePasquale, in the
13 summary he writes, "We will follow up at the appropriate
14 time to determine whether and to what extent all
15 recommendations have been implemented." As you noted,
16 there were a number of recommendations. Will your office
17 follow up, now that you're the new Auditor General, with
18 the Department of State concerning those recommendations?
19 AUDITOR GENERAL DEFOOR: That's something that
20 we're currently discussing. And normally that is a
21 standard audit procedure. Whenever there's -- whenever you
22 produce an audit report, if there are findings, whether
23 you're Auditor General or whether you're county controller,
24 it's your responsibility six months to a year later to go
25 back and to see if those recommendations were, in fact,
36
1 implemented.
2 REPRESENTATIVE MILLER: Given the fact that the
3 Department of State refused to provide the documents that
4 were required to complete a full audit, what are your
5 thoughts about following up with them for those documents
6 that they previously refused to provide?
7 AUDITOR GENERAL DEFOOR: As it pertains to this
8 audit, or as it pertains to any future audits?
9 REPRESENTATIVE MILLER: Well, I would say,
10 actually, being able to fully complete this audit to make
11 it 100 percent?
12 AUDITOR GENERAL DEFOOR: Well, this audit, in my
13 opinion, at least, is 100 percent and has been completed
14 regardless of whether or not those documents were or were
15 not received. I mean, that's the finding in itself.
16 However, going forward if we do perform another audit with
17 regard to whether or not the recommendations were followed
18 up on, if documentation is not provided then that would be
19 another finding. However, with regard to this particular
20 audit that we're discussing today, the findings -- when the
21 findings were that they did not receive the -- they did not
22 provide the documentation, and that's the finding. And I
23 don't see us -- that's something I'll discuss with my
24 staff. I don't see us going back and redoing this
25 particular audit for that reason.
37
1 REPRESENTATIVE MILLER: Okay. It's troubling at
2 least to me that the Department of State refused to provide
3 these documents in making the recommendations that we would
4 be relying upon, perhaps somewhat hamstrung, because of
5 that, and I'm glad that you're going to be following up to
6 see what recommendations have been implemented, and I think
7 that's something for the General Assembly to be looking at.
8 AUDITOR GENERAL DEFOOR: I'm sorry. I
9 didn't -- you cut out like the last 10 seconds and I didn't
10 hear what you said. I apologize.
11 REPRESENTATIVE MILLER: I said, I'm glad that you
12 will be looking in to see what the recommendations -- how
13 they get implemented, and I'm troubled by the fact that the
14 Department of State did not provide these documents and I'd
15 like to see the General Assembly look to see that we get
16 those documents that were withheld, and then maybe get a
17 complete audit at some time in the future.
18 So with that, thank you, Mr. Chairman.
19 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN SCHEMEL: Chairwoman Davidson?
20 MINORITY CHAIRWOMAN DAVIDSON: Thank you, Mr.
21 Chairman.
22 Thank you for your testimony today. I just heard
23 you say that the audit is complete. You believe that the
24 risk-limiting audit is complete as it's currently
25 documented? Is it complete or is it not complete is my
38
1 question.
2 AUDITOR GENERAL DEFOOR: Are we talking about the
3 SURE audit -- the SURE system?
4 MINORITY CHAIRWOMAN DAVIDSON: Yes.
5 AUDITOR GENERAL DEFOOR: That is complete.
6 MINORITY CHAIRWOMAN DAVIDSON: Okay. Thank you.
7 And for you, what were the key findings that you believe
8 need further clarification or further follow up for you
9 going forward as the new Auditor General?
10 AUDITOR GENERAL DEFOOR: There were seven
11 findings, and within those seven findings we had 50
12 recommendations. And instead of going through all seven
13 findings and all 50 recommendations, I'll kind of just
14 summarize it for everybody.
15 And the number one thing is, as the new SURE
16 system is being built, being implemented with the
17 Department of State, we need to assure that whatever the 50
18 recommendations that this office had and any other concerns
19 that any counties may have had, that that information is
20 not only included as part of the technical requirements of
21 what the system can do, but also the functional
22 requirements of what we do with the system.
23 But also, we have to include the counties. And
24 none of this is going to work without having a
25 conversation -- direct conversation with the counties with
39
1 regard to whose responsibilities or what and how things
2 should be done. So I think the counties -- and I
3 understand that you have a couple of county commissioners
4 coming up next, but to include the counties is extremely
5 important. They're the ones who run the elections, and
6 they're the ones who house all the information. So you
7 definitely have to include them.
8 MINORITY CHAIRWOMAN DAVIDSON: Is there anything
9 that the Department found during the process of conducting
10 the risk-limiting audit to indicate that there's any
11 reasons that voters shouldn't have 100 percent confidence
12 in the outcome of last year's election?
13 AUDITOR GENERAL DEFOOR: Seeing that that was
14 part of the audit, again, I'm going to defer to my two
15 colleagues.
16 MS. SKORIJA: The audit that we did was the audit
17 of the voter registration system, the SURE audit, rather
18 than an audit of the election. So it would not be
19 able -- we would not be able to comment on the 2020
20 election, but we were able to do a lot of data analysis on
21 voter registration records as of 2018.
22 MINORITY CHAIRWOMAN DAVIDSON: Thank you for
23 that.
24 Why do we need risk-limiting audits, and why are
25 they beneficial, in your opinion?
40
1 AUDITOR GENERAL DEFOOR: Is that a question for
2 me?
3 MINORITY CHAIRWOMAN DAVIDSON: Yes. You or
4 whoever you might designate.
5 AUDITOR GENERAL DEFOOR: As far as risk-limiting
6 audits, yeah, that's -- you know, at this time something
7 just I'm not prepared to answer.
8 MINORITY CHAIRWOMAN DAVIDSON: Okay.
9 AUDITOR GENERAL DEFOOR: At this time.
10 MINORITY CHAIRWOMAN DAVIDSON: Was the Department
11 required to do a risk-limiting audit on this election?
12 AUDITOR GENERAL DEFOOR: Again, I'll defer that
13 to one of my colleagues, seeing that back when all this was
14 performed I was not yet in office.
15 MINORITY CHAIRWOMAN DAVIDSON: Seems like they
16 put you in a very precarious situation just being on the
17 job and you're having to testify for a lot of things that
18 happened prior to your tenure, but I appreciate you bearing
19 with the Committee.
20 AUDITOR GENERAL DEFOOR: And I appreciate that.
21 I have broad shoulders and thick skin.
22 MINORITY CHAIRWOMAN DAVIDSON: Was the Department
23 required to do the risk-limiting audit?
24 MS. SKORIJA: This is Anne Skorija. The audit
25 that we were asked to do was only required by an
41
1 interagency agreement that we had with the Department of
2 State prior to the start of the audit. As far as mandates
3 or what is required by law in order to (indiscernible)
4 include in our audit I think we would have to get back to
5 you on that.
6 MINORITY CHAIRWOMAN DAVIDSON: Okay. Yes. And
7 that would be helpful. Because I had -- we had trouble
8 hearing you because it's breaking up.
9 That is all of my questions for now. Thank you
10 for your testimony.
11 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN SCHEMEL: Thank you,
12 Chairwoman.
13 Representative Owlett?
14 REPRESENTATIVE OWLETT: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
15 And it's more of a clarification. One of the
16 prior questioners was asking about Michigan and Arizona.
17 General, if it sounded odd, that's actually from the
18 testimony that's coming next from the next testifier. So
19 just wanted to be clear so that you didn't feel like you
20 were missing something there. That's part of the testimony
21 that's coming up in the next phase. I thought I would be
22 clear -- make sure that's clear.
23 AUDITOR GENERAL DEFOOR: I appreciate that.
24 Thank you.
25 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN SCHEMEL: Good. Thank you,
42
1 Representative.
2 Representative Nelson? And I will ask -- remind
3 everyone that we are sort of drawing short on time on this
4 panel, so.
5 REPRESENTATIVE NELSON: Yes. Thank you, Mr.
6 Chairman. I'll be quick.
7 Just following up as discussions have crossed
8 over into expectations for the new system. You know,
9 there's a lot of concern and the 2019 audit highlighted,
10 you know, that 70 percent of voter records that were not
11 able to be verified. From -- without the ability to
12 confirm that existing voters in the SURE System -- if your
13 office can't confirm that those records are valid and true,
14 would you recommend taking a deeper dive into the existing
15 registered voters that are in the SURE System before that
16 potentially duplicate or corrupt database be transferred
17 into what may be a new system?
18 AUDITOR GENERAL DEFOOR: You definitely want to
19 take a look at the systems being transferred from an old
20 system to a new system because there always is the
21 possibility of that data being corrupted. But also you
22 want to have to take a look at how is the -- again, all
23 this goes back to the counties. How is their information
24 being held? Is their information secure; is information
25 accurate? So that's why one of my earlier comments was,
43
1 regardless of what we do going forward, or what you guys do
2 going forward, you have to include any governments, and the
3 Director and the Bureau of Elections.
4 REPRESENTATIVE OWLETT: Thank you. Thank you
5 very much. I appreciate that.
6 AUDITOR GENERAL DEFOOR: Thank you.
7 REPRESENTATIVE NELSON: Thank you, Mr. Chair.
8 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN SCHEMEL: Thank you,
9 Representative.
10 Really quickly, with regard to risk-limiting
11 audits -- and this is just a general audit question -- is
12 the conducting of risk-limiting audits by the same county
13 election officials who oversee the election congruent with
14 best practices?
15 AUDITOR GENERAL DEFOOR: Well, it depends. In
16 some counties -- in some of your home-rule counties and
17 some of your cities, you have your controllers who are the
18 ones who would be responsible for performing a risk-
19 limiting audit, so it would be their responsibility. In
20 some counties, you have controllers, such as myself, who
21 performed audits but they were primarily performing
22 financial audits. So it necessarily wouldn't be a conflict
23 to have somebody within the county perform those types of
24 audits because they're sworn to uphold the same level of
25 independence and transparency as anybody else. So with
44
1 regards to the counties doing it, I really don't see a
2 problem with it and it really shouldn't be concerning to
3 this body.
4 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN SCHEMEL: Okay. Thank you. If
5 the Auditor General's office were involved, would that give
6 any greater independence to that? And second to that,
7 would your staff have even the capability of performing
8 risk-limiting audits?
9 AUDITOR GENERAL DEFOOR: Currently, with the
10 limited staff that we have, that's something that we would
11 have to discuss. You know, it's something that I haven't
12 discussed with my staff, but it's something that we would
13 definitely have to look into and have some conversations
14 with yourself and others, so I can't confirm one way or
15 another at this time.
16 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN SCHEMEL: Okay. And what about
17 just the process? If the Auditor General's Office were
18 involved, would that create any greater independence than
19 having the counties auditing themselves?
20 AUDITOR GENERAL DEFOOR: As far as the process
21 for the entire Commonwealth or the process for each
22 particular county?
23 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN SCHEMEL: For each county.
24 AUDITOR GENERAL DEFOOR: I mean -- again, that's
25 something that my recommendation would be to also include
45
1 the counties in that process. The Auditor General's office
2 could potentially be involved with regards to providing
3 some tough guidance and reviewing the information once all
4 the information comes in. It would definitely be a
5 daunting task to audit all 67 counties, but it's something
6 that would have to be, again discussed, planned. And if
7 something is being done, it would have to be managed
8 properly, and which, of course, would require the proper
9 resources to do it.
10 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN SCHEMEL: So an issue for the
11 Appropriations Committee, then?
12 AUDITOR GENERAL DEFOOR: Potentially, yes.
13 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN SCHEMEL: Very well.
14 Any further questions?
15 Then I thank all three of you. Once again,
16 congratulations on succeeding to office. And thank you, as
17 well, to Ms. Ciccocioppo and Skorija for your attendance
18 today.
19 AUDITOR GENERAL DEFOOR: Thank you.
20 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN SCHEMEL: And we're up to the
21 next panel, so.
22 Hope, can you please turn on your camera?
23 Very good. Next we are joined by Hope Verelst,
24 Deputy Chief Clerk, Director of Elections and Voter
25 Registration in Sullivan County, and Dr. Thad Hall,
46
1 Elections Director of Mercer County.
2 Deputy Chief Verelst and Dr. Hall, if you would
3 please both raise your right hands.
4 (Parties sworn)
5 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN SCHEMEL: Very well. Thank you
6 both. I think you've both provided some written testimony
7 for us today so I'm going to ask each of you if you'd like
8 to make opening remarks.
9 And I think we'll start with Deputy Chief
10 Verelst.
11 MS. VERELST: I would just have a few brief
12 opening remarks. I do thank all of you for inviting us
13 here today.
14 I've been a member of the Pennsylvania Post-
15 Election Audit Workgroup for two years, and in that time,
16 I've participated in two statewide and two countywide risk-
17 limiting audit pilots, and in all cases, the results showed
18 to a statistical degree of certainty that the elections
19 were valid -- the outcomes were valid.
20 As you know, Pennsylvania counties are required
21 currently by the mandate, state-mandated statute, to
22 conduct an audit of randomly selected ballots equal to two
23 percent of the votes cast or 2,000, whichever is lesser,
24 after each election and prior to certification, which has
25 worked for local and even countywide races.
47
1 However, statewide races, this becomes a little
2 more difficult, mainly because each of the 67
3 counties -- maybe not each of them, but several -- complete
4 that two percent audit differently. Some will do a hand
5 recount with tally. Some will do a rescan on a different
6 machine to test their outcomes. And to assure a valid
7 statewide outcome you would, of course, want some type of
8 standardization.
9 Sullivan County participated in the 2020 risk-
10 limiting audits that the state conducted and we also, of
11 course, did our two percent audit. For both methods, it
12 was essential that we kept ballot storage and ballot
13 security were definitely top priority because you have
14 to -- the audit integrity depends on you being able to
15 prove that the ballots you're auditing are in fact the
16 ballots that were voted.
17 From a County Election Director's perspective, no
18 one wants to verify the outcome more than we do. We're
19 right here on the front lines, and if given more time and
20 resources we would, potentially, welcome a more robust
21 post-election audit. However, there are three weeks
22 between election day and county certification deadline.
23 And in that time, we have to reconcile the number of votes
24 cast with the number -- the number of voters with the
25 number of ballots cast. We have to canvass all election
48
1 day provisional, absentee and mail ballots. We have to
2 investigate any abnormalities we should find and any
3 challenges that would come up, and of course, complete our
4 already mandated two percent audit.
5 The audit workgroup has suggested that the
6 legislature consider replacing the two percent audit with a
7 more robust post-election audit, which could include, but
8 would not be limited to, risk-limiting audits. And
9 counties could also benefit from some extra time to
10 complete tasks prior to election like pre-canvassing of the
11 mail and absentee ballots and possibly even extending that
12 timeline between election day and certification.
13 In conclusion, feedback from county directors
14 indicates a need for some guidance and standardization,
15 especially among our newer members. As you're probably
16 aware, county elections officials have seen more than a 30
17 percent turnover rate since the June 2020 primary. And you
18 know, this includes a host of veteran directors who really
19 had provided insight to the new people coming in. We're
20 not provided with a handbook or a how-to guide when we
21 start this job, which would be great. And so we really
22 kind of leaned on each other. And granted, all counties
23 are different and what works for us in small, little
24 Sullivan County is maybe not going to work for
25 Philadelphia, but some type of standardization across the
49
1 board, not only in this post-election auditing process but
2 in election processes overall, is really needed.
3 Thank you for your time.
4 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN SCHEMEL: Very good. Thank
5 you.
6 Dr. Hall?
7 DR. HALL: Thank you. So I am the Election
8 Director in Mercer County and prior to coming to Mercer
9 County I was the Election Director in Coconino County,
10 Arizona. And I want to talk very briefly about the
11 election audits we did in Arizona because I think that they
12 provide a nice lesson for Pennsylvania.
13 In Arizona, counties worked with the political
14 parties to conduct a hand count of the ballots cast in the
15 election. And the purpose of a hand count was to provide
16 the political parties and the public with confidence that
17 the ballots were being counted accurately. And the hand
18 count was conducted the day after the election because in
19 Arizona you can pre-canvass two weeks before the election.
20 And it included both election-day ballots and early
21 ballots. And the hand-counted ballots were randomly
22 selected by the political parties. And the hand count
23 itself was conducted by members of the political parties,
24 supervised by elections staff. And by having the parties
25 select the precincts to conduct the hand count, they were
50
1 invested in the process and they could see for themselves
2 that the audit was conducted correctly and it also kept the
3 election office from auditing themselves. It was being
4 done by the political parties.
5 There were a couple of strengths for the hand
6 count; the primary strength being the method for
7 conducting -- it was spelled out in statute and in the
8 Arizona Election Procedures Manual, which is a 500-page
9 manual that every Election Director is given to explain to
10 them how they're -- every aspect of their job.
11 The hand count here should be made mandatory for
12 all the counties. We should have a mandatory process and
13 it should also have a standardized reporting format. And
14 the parties should also be able to select precincts that
15 they may want to be included in the audit because parties
16 have to address -- they may want to address concerns they
17 have about a precinct. In the May -- upcoming May
18 elections, in the primary, we're going to use a modified
19 version of the Arizona hand count, and our political
20 parties are real excited about that.
21 Second, I do want to mention Michigan, briefly.
22 Michigan is one of the states that conducts a post-election
23 audit that actually audits the processes and procedures
24 that were established in statute and make sure that
25 localities are actually following through on the various
51
1 requirements. And they do that so that they can improve
2 training and subsequently improve procedures. This type of
3 audit would be possible in Pennsylvania once our election
4 code has been updated and there's greater uniformity in how
5 we're supposed to do things across all the counties.
6 I want to just dovetail onto what Hope said on
7 two things. One is, our ability to conduct audits is
8 limited by the time we have for canvassing, and moving back
9 that canvass period would help address that problem. The
10 other issue that we have here is that we have a very old
11 system for checking in voters at polling places. We use
12 numbered lists of voters and poll lists. And in Arizona,
13 we used electronic poll books. I knew the moment my polls
14 closed on election day how many people had voted and I
15 didn't have to go through 90 numbered lists of voters which
16 have varying degrees of accuracy to determine how many
17 voters I should be reconciling against how many ballots on
18 election day.
19 I'm looking forward to any questions you have and
20 thank you for inviting us to testify.
21 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN SCHEMEL: Very well. Thank you
22 both.
23 Representative Wheeland.
24 REPRESENTATIVE WHEELAND: Thank you, Mr.
25 Chairman.
52
1 I consistently hear, when I talk to Election
2 Directors across the state, that you kind of each do your
3 own thing. I mean, you abide by the law but no 67 counties
4 appear to do everything the same on statewide elections.
5 So back to the two percent audit. Who, and I guess this is
6 a question for each of you, ladies first. Who performs
7 that two percent audit for Sullivan County?
8 MS. VERELST: Okay. Currently, in Sullivan
9 County, we perform the two percent audit. After speaking
10 to Thad, as we were preparing for this hearing, I love the
11 idea of having -- and I believe that our chairs for each
12 party would love to participate in the audit and we will
13 probably make an effort to have them included in the May
14 primary, as well. But currently, and for years, it has
15 been conducted mostly by county officials.
16 REPRESENTATIVE WHEELAND: Okay. So you audit
17 yourself.
18 MS. VERELST: Right.
19 REPRESENTATIVE WHEELAND: Doctor, what?
20 DR. HALL: And the same is true in Mercer County.
21 In 2020, we did the audit ourselves and -- but moving
22 forward, I'm going to have the political parties do this,
23 and the parties are very excited about being a part of the
24 process.
25 REPRESENTATIVE WHEELAND: Okay. And so you do
53
1 the two percent audit. Department of State send any folks
2 up to assist or look over your shoulder?
3 MS. VERELST: No. That's what we were kind of
4 saying. There is no standardized reporting required in the
5 statute. There's no -- that two percent audit is filed
6 away. If it were to be asked for, of course, could be
7 produced but it is not -- there's nothing standardized.
8 REPRESENTATIVE WHEELAND: Okay.
9 Doctor, anything to add to that? What --
10 DR. HALL: Sure. I -- it's the same thing. You
11 know, we have the same requirement. You know, we have the
12 data but we don't do any reporting. You know, if you
13 go -- if you look at how Arizona does it, they actually are
14 required to submit a report to the state and people can
15 actually go online and read those reports to know the
16 results of every county's audit.
17 REPRESENTATIVE WHEELAND: Okay. So quickly,
18 what -- again, ladies first -- what was the result of your
19 two percent audit? What were your findings?
20 MS. VERELST: Our findings were almost 100
21 percent, but you have to understand, our -- we're so small
22 and so our two percent would have only consisted of
23 literally 79 ballots. We audited more than that. We
24 randomly selected a precinct and it ended up being our
25 Lopez precinct. And when the hand count was completed, it
54
1 took no time and it was accurate.
2 REPRESENTATIVE WHEELAND: One hundred percent?
3 MS. VERELST: Yes. Yep.
4 REPRESENTATIVE WHEELAND: Okay.
5 Doctor?
6 DR. HALL: We sampled across both our -- we have
7 to do about 1,400 ballots, so we sampled across some of our
8 mail-in precincts -- or mail-in ballots by precinct and
9 also our election-day ballots by precinct so we would have
10 some of each. And we had a -- it was all -- it was 100
11 percent match. The places where you find that there are
12 initially problems are that people can't count paper. It's
13 not that machines can't count paper.
14 MS. VERELST: Right.
15 REPRESENTATIVE WHEELAND: It's that people can't
16 count paper.
17 MS. VERELST: I would like to just jump in there
18 real quick, that we also, just so -- for verification, our
19 batches are put together so we audited everything:
20 provisional, mail-in, absentee, precinct, at poll, at the
21 polls.
22 REPRESENTATIVE WHEELAND: So I guess this is a
23 question because you sit on the state committee. Has any
24 of the 67 counties found a problem with 2 percent or is the
25 2 percent audit 100 percent all the time?
55
1 MS. VERELST: Well, that's the thing. We
2 don't -- the thing that I'm more familiar with is the risk-
3 limit audit pilot that was performed as far as statewide.
4 There's no reporting -- again, no reporting necessary or
5 required. I guess it's necessary, but not required, so I
6 don't know how the other counties -- what their findings
7 were on that two percent.
8 REPRESENTATIVE WHEELAND: Doctor, any information
9 that you could share with us, as --
10 DR. HALL: I've been here five months, so that's
11 all I can tell you.
12 REPRESENTATIVE WHEELAND: Okay.
13 Well, it would be interesting to see if those 2
14 percent audits were 100 percent across the board. Then the
15 question comes, why do we do them? So --
16 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN SCHEMEL: Thank you. Thank
17 you.
18 DR. HALL: Well, I do think the reason to do them
19 is because it does give people confidence in the process,
20 especially if the parties are involved. Then when you do
21 have questions about the outcome, you can at least -- the
22 parties can -- you can point to the parties and they can
23 amplify our voices that the election was -- that the
24 ballots were counted correctly.
25 REPRESENTATIVE WHEELAND: Thank you.
56
1 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN SCHEMEL: Representative Ryan?
2 REPRESENTATIVE RYAN: Mr. Chairman, thank you so
3 much.
4 And thank you for being here. We truly
5 appreciate it. Just a real quick question relative to the
6 two percent audits and the risk-limiting audits. There's a
7 concept called fallacy of composition in economics, and
8 that which would be true for the individual component, such
9 as the counties, may not be true for the whole part of it.
10 So when you're doing your risk-limited audit or a two
11 percent audit, things of that nature, would that identify
12 weaknesses in the voter records themselves, such as the
13 voter registration process itself, as well as cross-county
14 differences such as, as an example, if someone underage
15 were to be registered to vote; would that be identified as
16 part of your two percent audit? Would cross-county voting
17 be that identified, as well?
18 MS. VERELST: No. No. This would simply -- this
19 two percent audit simply takes a look at the ballots cast
20 in a certain election.
21 REPRESENTATIVE RYAN: Thank you so much, Mr.
22 Chairman.
23 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN SCHEMEL: Very good. Thank
24 you, Representative.
25 Representative Schmitt?
57
1 REPRESENTATIVE SCHMITT: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
2 And good afternoon to the two of you. Thank you
3 for being here. Let me start out -- let me preface my
4 questions by saying that my wife, who retired last year,
5 for 26 years was an employee of the County of Blair and for
6 the last 13 years of her tenure was the Chief Clerk and
7 County Administrator, so she has had a lot of experience
8 over the years with elections and I've heard all about it.
9 And I just would like to say that in terms of Blair County,
10 our people here, our election people in Blair County are
11 incredibly dedicated and hardworking. And I'm certain the
12 Election Directors and their staff in Sullivan County and
13 Mercer County and the other counties across this great
14 Commonwealth are equally dedicated and hardworking people.
15 And I commend them on the work that they had to do last
16 year in both the primary and in the general elections.
17 I have a question about -- Ms. Verelst, you
18 mentioned the two percent audit and the results are kind of
19 just stored away?
20 MS. VERELST: Correct.
21 REPRESENTATIVE SCHMITT: You don't really -- do
22 you share them with anybody? Do you share them with the
23 public?
24 MS. VERELST: No. No. This has been -- and this
25 is what we're looking for as far as standardization. We
58
1 have not -- there's no statutory requirement to put them
2 out there or to share them. Now, if there had been a
3 right-to-know request, of course, they would be available
4 and could be shared but there's really nothing -- no
5 requirement, so it's never been done, so.
6 REPRESENTATIVE SCHMITT: As far as you know, Ms.
7 Verelst, are there any restrictions on your ability to
8 share the results of those audits?
9 MS. VERELST: No. We could do that.
10 REPRESENTATIVE SCHMITT: Could you share them
11 with --
12 MS. VERELST: We absolutely could.
13 REPRESENTATIVE SCHMITT: -- could you, for
14 instance, share them with this committee?
15 MS. VERELST: Sure.
16 REPRESENTATIVE SCHMITT: Would you be willing do
17 that?
18 MS. VERELST: Yep.
19 REPRESENTATIVE SCHMITT: How about up in Mercer
20 County, Dr. Hall; would you be willing to do that?
21 DR. HALL: Sure. We'd be happy to do that.
22 REPRESENTATIVE SCHMITT: Thank you. I appreciate
23 that.
24 I'm going to -- I had a couple other questions
25 but they've actually already been asked so I'm going to put
59
1 you both on the spot here, just a little bit, in a good
2 way. In a good way.
3 MS. VERELST: Okay.
4 REPRESENTATIVE SCHMITT: If the legislature could
5 give you anything that you needed to make the election
6 process from the county's perspective operate as optimally
7 as possible, what would that be?
8 And we'll start maybe with Ms. Verelst first.
9 MS. VERELST: Well, you know what? I have a huge
10 list. But the one thing that would probably cover a lot of
11 the stuff on that list is for legislature to work hand-in-
12 hand with the counties and create guidance, a handbook,
13 standard set of this is the process for each. And we would
14 go down with you every step of the way, from post-election
15 forward, you know -- or pre-election forward. And we would
16 be glad to tell you how it works for us now and get some
17 written down -- because when these new people come, they do
18 not know and there's no -- we can share with them what we
19 have learned, experienced, but to have some guidance that
20 is statutorily related that goes back to the law, that's
21 what we need.
22 REPRESENTATIVE SCHMITT: Thank you.
23 And Dr. Hall, what do you think?
24 DR. HALL: Well, let me give you a couple of
25 things. First, you know, having a better calendar for what
60
1 we do would be very helpful with, you know, from the
2 deadline for when candidates who are independents can file,
3 because that caused a big problem with our ballots for the
4 general election with that lawsuit that was going on with
5 the Green Party.
6 You know, having a pre-canvassing period would be
7 very helpful.
8 Clearing up a lot of the old things that are in
9 those statute. You know, for instance the statute still
10 refers to lanterns and we have numbered lists of voters and
11 things that are clearly from a time long ago when there
12 were horses and buggies and things like that. The statute
13 refers to hand -- paper ballots in various different ways
14 when they clearly are referring to hand-counted paper
15 ballots versus --
16 REPRESENTATIVE SCHMITT: Uh-huh.
17 DR. HALL: -- the ballots we use today. Clearing
18 up that sort of aspect of the law so it's very clear what
19 it is we're actually supposed to be doing would be very
20 helpful.
21 And I think, you know, also like Hope was saying,
22 us having, you know, better training, better guidance. You
23 know, when I was in Arizona we did have a 500-page manual
24 and we had to go through a week-long training that was done
25 by the state where every Elections Director and election
61
1 employees, you know, they had to go through statewide
2 training. And you know, that makes a big difference in
3 people doing things uniformly.
4 MS. VERELST: Absolutely.
5 REPRESENTATIVE SCHMITT: Well listen, thank
6 you --
7 DR. HALL: And we --
8 REPRESENTATIVE SCHMITT: Oh, go ahead.
9 DR. HALL: I was just going to say we also all
10 need more money.
11 REPRESENTATIVE SCHMITT: Well, that's -- let me
12 just say that that's not unique to counties.
13 Well, let me thank the both of you for being here
14 and your information and testimony has been very helpful.
15 We'll get working on trying to get you the help that we can
16 and that you need. And thank you again very much for being
17 here.
18 Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
19 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN SCHEMEL: Thank you,
20 Representative.
21 Representative Diamond.
22 REPRESENTATIVE DIAMOND: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
23 DR. HALL, I had seen your written testimony; you
24 just repeated it here about the issue of pre-canvassing.
25 I've got a huge question about pre-canvassing and whether
62
1 it's wise or not. Let me just give you the situation.
2 Mary shows up to vote. She's told at the poll that she has
3 already voted by mail. Mary swears she did not so she's
4 given a provisional ballot. When you go to adjudicate that
5 provisional ballot, if you've pre-canvassed and you've
6 separated the mail-in ballot that allegedly comes from Mary
7 from the envelope that Mary allegedly sent that ballot in,
8 if you find out that the signature on that envelope is not
9 Mary's at all, it's not Mary's address, or there's
10 something about the envelope that indicates to you that the
11 ballot that came in that envelope, which is now anonymously
12 in a pile with thousands of others, how do you adjudicate
13 Mary's provisional ballot? If you believe a -- an election
14 official can believe that Mary did not in fact send that
15 mail-in ballot? If you've pre-canvassed, how do you
16 adjudicate that provisional ballot and say to Mary, we're
17 counting your actual ballot if you can't reach into the
18 pile of anonymous ballots and grab the faulty one out?
19 MS. VERELST: Okay. So this would be a definite
20 challenge that would be -- Mary would have a challenge that
21 she would pose and she would say, you know what? I didn't
22 vote. And we're going to find about that on election day
23 when she gets there and they say, you know, you've
24 already -- this says you've already voted. She would go
25 ahead and do the provisional ballot and they would alert
63
1 us. And I'm going to say, well, I already have one for her
2 here. We should have already taken a look and seen how
3 close the signature matched. If anything was out of the
4 ordinary, she should have an application on file that at
5 least the application signature should be similar to the
6 ballot statement signature. You know, we're going to check
7 all that before we would scan anything in.
8 But and then a challenge is just going to have to
9 play out in -- basically in -- through a hearing. I can't
10 honestly tell you how that would work but I think if we
11 pre-canvassed correctly, if we went through all of the
12 verification steps that are required before we can scan
13 that ballot in, the likelihood of this happening is very
14 slim.
15 REPRESENTATIVE DIAMOND: However, it is a
16 likelihood. There is a slim --
17 MS. VERELST: There is --
18 REPRESENTATIVE DIAMOND: -- likelihood that
19 Mary's provisional ballot could be voided by a --
20 MS. VERELST: Yes.
21 REPRESENTATIVE DIAMOND: -- mail-in ballot that
22 Mary actually did not submit by mail. I mean,
23 there -- that's a real chance, right?
24 MS. VERELST: There is that possibility, but
25 might I just say that Mary cannot get a mail ballot without
64
1 an application. So she's going to do an application and
2 it's going to come to us and when we enter that application
3 information the signature that's on the application is
4 going to be compared with her voter registration signature.
5 I personally have called on the phone during this
6 last election many, many, many people. If I had a question
7 at all about their application, their ballot as it came
8 back -- maybe their signature on their declaration is not
9 the same as their voter registration because
10 they're -- they were 18 when they registered to vote and
11 they're, you know, 50 now, and their signature has changed.
12 I will call and verify with them, you did send me your
13 ballot? You are voting in this election?
14 REPRESENTATIVE DIAMOND: I --
15 MS. VERELST: So as Election Directors, we go
16 through a series of steps before we're going to scan that
17 in --
18 REPRESENTATIVE DIAMOND: I --
19 MS. VERELST: -- before we're going to count it
20 as a valid ballot.
21 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN SCHEMEL: So to bring this --
22 MS. VERELST: So the chance of this happening is
23 slim.
24 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN SCHEMEL: So to bring this --
25 REPRESENTATIVE DIAMOND: -- I very much
65
1 appreciate that. I just do think that you're still
2 allowing that there's a possibility that Mary's legitimate
3 ballot will not be counted and an illegitimate ballot may
4 be counting --
5 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN SCHEMEL: Representative --
6 REPRESENTATIVE DIAMOND: -- and as a function of
7 pre-canvassing, that's always going to be a possibility.
8 Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
9 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN SCHEMEL: Yeah. Thank you,
10 Representative. We do want to keep our questions couched
11 within the context of audits, if we could, so thank you.
12 Representative Dowling?
13 REPRESENTATIVE DOWLING: Thank you. And thank
14 you for both being here with us today.
15 Just for a point of clarification for those who
16 are watching or for the members of our committee, how does
17 a risk-limiting audit differ from what we call the two
18 percent audit?
19 MS. VERELST: I can go, if you want me to, Thad?
20 DR. HALL: Sure. You can -- I'll let you
21 take -- since you're --
22 MS. VERELST: Okay.
23 DR. HALL: -- on the Committee.
24 MS. VERELST: Okay. So a risk-limiting audit,
25 there is a seed drawn, a number drawn, a random number that
66
1 cannot be -- you're not going to know about it ahead of
2 time. So you would draw a random 20-digit number and
3 you -- this number would be entered into software. The
4 software would then decide which ballots -- from a pre-
5 entered ballot manifest of all ballots cast, which ballots
6 are to be drawn. There's no way you could know ahead of
7 time which ballots could be drawn or any of that.
8 So the risk-limit audit draws from a selection, a
9 random selection of ballots across the board. It's truly
10 random. Where the two percent audit, you're
11 drawing -- most people are drawing from a hat or drawing a
12 number of which precinct or how many ballots in which
13 precincts you're going to need to cover to get your two
14 percent or your 2,000 ballots. So I feel the main
15 difference, in my view, is that the risk-limit audit is
16 truly random. No way to get a pre -- an idea ahead of the
17 time of which of those ballots are going to be drawn.
18 REPRESENTATIVE DOWLING: And Doctor Hall --
19 MS. VERELST: Did you have something to -- oh, go
20 ahead.
21 REPRESENTATIVE DOWLING: I was going to say, Dr.
22 Hall, kind of as a follow-up from the county perspective,
23 what are the benefits, then, from your point of view, to a
24 risk-limiting audit rather than the two percent approach?
25 DR. HALL: I'm sorry. You kind of broke up
67
1 there.
2 REPRESENTATIVE DOWLING: I was asking what
3 the -- from a county perspective, what the positives would
4 be on a risk-limiting audit to the two percent?
5 DR. HALL: Sure. Actually, this is interesting,
6 Hope and I were discussing this yesterday. And you know,
7 what the issues with a risk-limiting audit at the county
8 level is, so for instance, I have 48 local municipalities,
9 townships, boroughs, and cities, and to do a risk-limiting
10 audit for, like a mayor's race or a council race or an
11 auditor's race, I would literally have to count 100 percent
12 of the ballots. So in many respects, a two percent audit,
13 you know, when we're picking precincts allows us to, you
14 know, audit that entire jurisdiction and make sure that we
15 counted the ballots correctly for that jurisdiction.
16 And that's one of the reasons why when we do our
17 audit in May I'm going to allow my political parties to
18 select the precinct to be audited also because I want to
19 let -- you know, if they know of -- if they have a concern
20 with a jurisdiction, I want to let them allow us to audit
21 it.
22 You know, the issue with risk-limiting audits is
23 that you have to draw enough ballots so that you have a
24 fairly high certainty that the outcome is -- it would not
25 be -- you know, is correct. And the smaller the race is,
68
1 you -- the more you get closer to having to do 100 percent
2 of the ballots, so that's kind of the big issue.
3 REPRESENTATIVE DOWLING: Thank you. And that
4 kind of ties my two questions together as to what are the
5 positives and negatives.
6 I would ask Deputy Chief Verelst, do you have any
7 comments to add as to the positives and negatives to a
8 risk-limiting audit versus the two percent audit, as well?
9 I apologize. Can you unmute yourself, please?
10 You're muted.
11 MS. VERELST: Sorry about that.
12 REPRESENTATIVE DOWLING: That's okay.
13 MS. VERELST: I would say that the positives,
14 again, are what I talked about earlier, the standardization
15 that we are currently lacking in the two percent, the
16 procedures to do the two percent. When you're talking
17 about a risk-limiting audit, it's performed at a state
18 level so that that number is drawn at the state level. All
19 of us do it the same way. You know, we go in, we pull the
20 ballot number that -- ballot numbers that we're told to
21 pull. We tally the results, by hand. And it's very
22 standard. You're going to come up with a statewide degree
23 of certainty about the outcome.
24 Where the two percent, if you want a statewide
25 assurance, at this point it would be very difficult to do,
69
1 and I'll give you an example. We have -- in Sullivan
2 County, we are a quite conservative county. So let's say
3 it's two-to-one Republican to Democrat, okay? And so if we
4 took almost any county, not all of them -- or any precinct,
5 but -- almost any precinct is going to come up with a
6 Republican vote. If you add those in and you're only
7 taking one county out of all 67, it's going to skew that
8 degree of certainty, where if you're polling from a random
9 number of ballots which draw from mail-in, absentee,
10 provisional, and election-day ballots. And you might get,
11 you know, a couple from this county, a couple from this
12 county. It's a much more valid statewide result. That's
13 my positive on it.
14 The negative is, in a tight race, which this one
15 was, some counties are drawing thousands of ballots, more
16 than they may have had to, way more than they would have
17 had to do with the two percent. So then I go back to our
18 time is limited prior to certification.
19 REPRESENTATIVE DOWLING: Well, I thank you both
20 for your time and for your answers on that question.
21 Thank you.
22 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN SCHEMEL: Thank you,
23 Representative.
24 Representative Kenyatta?
25 REPRESENTATIVE KENYATTA: First of all, I just
70
1 want to say thank you to both of you for doing this. It's
2 a tough gig at an incredibly tough time.
3 Deputy Clerk, you spoke about, again, the need
4 for pre-canvass. Can you explain again in just layman's
5 terms for folks who might be watching at home, what is a
6 pre-canvass process? And then also, if Pennsylvania was
7 able to pre-canvass, how much sooner would we have had the
8 results? And as a little piece of that, please, can you
9 tell me when your results were done? Like when you were
10 done counting your ballots, a date?
11 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN SCHEMEL: So if I could step in
12 and --
13 REPRESENTATIVE KENYATTA: Yes, Mr. Chair.
14 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN SCHEMEL: Those are excellent
15 questions. Can we reserve them to the end of this panel
16 because they don't relate directly to an audit? But I
17 understand why --
18 MINORITY CHAIRWOMAN DAVIDSON: I think --
19 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN SCHEMEL: -- this is just
20 for --
21 MINORITY CHAIRWOMAN DAVIDSON: -- Mr. Chairman, I
22 think that the testifier's brought up the issue of pre-
23 canvassing and it's been talked about here, so I think the
24 question is valid to the testimony that has already been
25 presented by the testifiers. They were the ones that
71
1 brought up the pre-canvassing, and Representative Diamond
2 referred to it. He got a chance to have an answer to his
3 questions. So I think it's -- out of fairness,
4 Representative Kenyatta should have an answer to his
5 question.
6 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN SCHEMEL: All right. We're
7 going to go ahead and allow the question, but I would ask
8 the Representatives to try to, you know, curtail your
9 questions to audits. And then at the end of the panel, if
10 there are other questions, then we could, as was stated at
11 the beginning of the hearing today, so.
12 REPRESENTATIVE KENYATTA: Thank you, Chairwoman.
13 And thank you, Mr. Chair.
14 And so again, because I know we're talking about
15 pre-canvass, but there are people watching this, who are
16 not elections experts, who might not know what that is.
17 And so could you just explain that and explain again how
18 much sooner you think we could have had the results if we
19 had an extended pre-canvass timeline?
20 MS. VERELST: Sure. I'd be glad to. So pre-
21 canvassing for us is, when the ballots come in, we go ahead
22 and can do a general verification. We can't open them or
23 do anything until election day at 7 a.m. But we can take a
24 look at them. There's a bar code associated with each
25 ballot. It's scanned. And when you scan that bar code,
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1 only the bar code, the only information it gives you is the
2 voter's voter registration record. You're able to do a
3 quick sight verification of their signature. We're not
4 signature experts so we can't say 100 percent, but we can
5 get a real good idea if it's the same signature. You make
6 sure that on the back of that envelope the date is on
7 there, the name and address of the voter, just a general
8 verification. Then those are stored away. They're locked
9 away.
10 And then on election day, beginning at 7 a.m.,
11 we're allowed to actually have a meeting with our Board of
12 Elections where those ballot envelopes are opened. The
13 outside envelope is set aside. The inside envelope can be
14 shredded and the ballot itself is opened, flattened, and
15 scanned. This is after any inconsistencies that were found
16 that we were concerned about or that the Election Board
17 themselves were concerned about are set aside. If there's
18 any question at all about the ballot validity, we set it
19 aside before we open it and do all the scanning.
20 Then ballots can be scanned but they -- the
21 results cannot be tabulated. So each one of these newly
22 certified election softwares that we have in the state can
23 have the tabulation turned off. It is tracked whether that
24 tabulation has been turned on and by whom. So we turn off
25 that tabulation prior to scanning in, and it's off until
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1 8:00 in the evening. We scan the ballots in. We still
2 don't know who's ahead, who's not ahead.
3 But I can tell you, the benefit of doing this
4 ahead of time and having more time to do it ahead of time,
5 it's going to help so much with voter confidence. The
6 reason being, as I had stated earlier, we're a very
7 conservative county. If we had turned on -- if we had been
8 able to turn on that tabulation at 8, and report those
9 results right away -- which we didn't, we reported them
10 precinct by precinct -- but if we'd reported those right
11 away and let's say a larger county, like Philadelphia, had
12 reported those results right away because they were able to
13 pre-scan all their ballots, the winner in this presidential
14 election would have been the winner because, as we all
15 know, a lot of the mail-in ballots were for Biden. So that
16 winner would have been the winner and then it would have
17 been the rest of the evening, as precinct level results
18 came in, President Trump would have been working to get
19 ahead.
20 The result would have looked as it looked at the
21 end right at the beginning because the pre-canvassing would
22 have been able to start. It also would have saved the
23 thought that this mail truck showed up in the middle of the
24 night with all these ballots, which is not what happened.
25 They were sitting in our elections offices waiting to be
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1 scanned. If they had already been scanned, the result
2 would have been there right away at 8:00.
3 Now, as far as Sullivan County, like I've said,
4 we are small, and we are fortunate in that, because with
5 the group of our Board of Elections, which is our
6 Commissions and myself, and another assistant, we were able
7 to pre-scan our ballots, turn on the results at 8, and be
8 ready to go with precinct-level results. So our results
9 were done. Final canvass, we were even done by Friday
10 evening after election.
11 I'm sorry if I took a long time but I'm
12 passionate about that one.
13 DR. HALL: Well, I was going to say, I think, you
14 know, we --
15 REPRESENTATIVE KENYATTA: Well, thank you. And I
16 wish everybody had you in social studies class just
17 explaining this all to us. This is really helpful.
18 DR. HALL: Right. And we pre-canvassed when I
19 was in Arizona, and I can tell you that, you know, we would
20 be releasing, you know, at 8:01 or -- 8:01 p.m., which was
21 an hour after our polls closed, we released 70 percent of
22 our election results because they were -- we had about 70
23 percent of people who voted by mail and those results were
24 released immediately. And then, obviously, we had two
25 weeks to pre-canvass, and that made a huge difference to
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1 what we were able to do.
2 REPRESENTATIVE KENYATTA: Well, thank you, Mr.
3 Chairman. And I would just note that I have a bill that
4 would have two weeks of pre-canvass.
5 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN SCHEMEL: Very well. Thank
6 you, Representative.
7 Representative Staats?
8 REPRESENTATIVE STAATS: Thank you, Mr. Chairman,
9 and thank you for recognizing me for a second time.
10 Welcome to our panel. We appreciate your time
11 today. Thank you. And I have three very quick questions.
12 The first question is who conducts the new RLA? In other
13 words, is it done by the state, local jurisdictions, or an
14 independent audit board?
15 MS. VERELST: Currently, the pilot was conducted
16 by the state.
17 REPRESENTATIVE STAATS: Thank you. So who
18 provides the resources and staff for conducting the audit?
19 MS. VERELST: Counties.
20 REPRESENTATIVE STAATS: And lastly, can you
21 be -- who can be present to observe when the audit is
22 conducted?
23 MS. VERELST: Anyone.
24 REPRESENTATIVE STAATS: Anyone can be present?
25 MS. VERELST: Yep. That is open. We would
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1 welcome anyone to observe it.
2 REPRESENTATIVE STAATS: Okay. Thank you.
3 And thank you, Mr. Chairman.
4 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN SCHEMEL: Thank you,
5 Representative.
6 Representative Owlett?
7 REPRESENTATIVE OWLETT: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
8 And thank you for joining us today. Hope, I
9 appreciate your passion for agriculture. I read that in
10 your testimony, as someone who shares that. Thank you.
11 MS. VERELST: Uh-huh.
12 REPRESENTATIVE OWLETT: I just want to talk a
13 little bit about this past election. The election
14 officials in all of our counties have testified,
15 Commissioners, those -- the boards, that really this was a
16 burdensome election here in 2020. We all know that. The
17 toll that it took on our county officials was huge, and you
18 referenced it in your testimony, Hope, where retirements
19 and departures and really that loss of knowledge in where
20 we're going here. I mean, it was like over 25, I believe,
21 election officials that have stepped out. My question is
22 would an expanded post-election pre-certification audit
23 require an added burden on our county officials?
24 MS. VERELST: Well, absolutely. If we're going
25 to do it, it would almost need to be a replacement of the
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1 audit that's already in place and even, potentially,
2 extending that timeline, like I said, because they're
3 really -- we're -- especially, these larger counties are
4 busy clear up until certification, trying to, what Thad
5 mentioned with the -- if we had electronic poll books, that
6 would help because they're trying to scan in all these
7 voter records to show we had the same number of voters as
8 we did ballots cast. That's got to be done before you
9 certify. I mean, that only makes sense. And then, you
10 know, if we're going to have a more robust audit, we need
11 more time for it. That's my opinion. I'm not --
12 REPRESENTATIVE OWLETT: Thad --
13 MS. VERELST: -- I'm sure Thad --
14 REPRESENTATIVE OWLETT: Thad, did you want to add
15 anything to that?
16 DR. HALL: No. I totally agree with her. You
17 know, I think that we can take the two percent audit we
18 already have to do and it can be made clearer and the
19 reporting requirements be made better if we can involve the
20 political parties and other, you know -- and people outside
21 of our offices, and it definitely makes the process better.
22 But anything we can do to extend the period for
23 certification and to remove the things that are there now,
24 like the canvassing process of the mail-in ballots and push
25 that backward makes everything a lot better.
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1 REPRESENTATIVE OWLETT: Well, I appreciate that.
2 And this burden, you know, with whatever we figure out,
3 whether it's joining partially with the county and
4 partially independent, you guys are thinking very
5 creatively about this. I think the one thing that we hear
6 often that it's a uniform process and it needs to be, but
7 what we're hearing from you is that it's really not so much
8 uniform, county by county.
9 I mean, that's concerning to me, as well as
10 I -- where I trust a lot of our counties. I mean, they're
11 there to serve. They do a great job. But if we applied
12 this same principle to the IRS, and maybe we should talk to
13 them about this, you know, hey let's let people do their
14 own audit on their taxes and see what happens. You know,
15 maybe that's not a bad idea. You know, we would -- we
16 literally chuckle about that but that's kind of what we see
17 happening, you know, across the Commonwealth and that's
18 just not really good. I mean, it came out in the testimony
19 before. So I appreciate your creativity and your thinking
20 about how we can make sure that we do these audits in a way
21 that's transparent. I think it's, you know, ironic that we
22 do them so that we can be transparent but then we don't
23 produce the results. Like, that seems odd to me.
24 So I think there's a lot that we need to look at
25 here as a committee, and I appreciate you being here for us
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1 to really dig into that and figure out some steps that need
2 to take place.
3 If there's anything you'd like to add --
4 DR. HALL: Well --
5 REPRESENTATIVE OWLETT: -- go ahead.
6 DR. HALL: -- one thing I just wanted to mention
7 about, you know, pre-canvassing or the audits and other
8 things is that other states are already doing this. You
9 know, you can look at Florida or Arizona or other states
10 and they do these audits, they do pre-canvassing, they have
11 procedures for signature verification, they do audits of
12 their voter registration databases. And so I think in many
13 cases the legislature can look to their counterparts in
14 other states and find models for doing this, and that's
15 something that I'm familiar with, just having lived in
16 other states and worked in elections in other states. And
17 I can tell you that you don't have to reinvent anything,
18 that it's all out there. Just pick the best of what other
19 people do.
20 REPRESENTATIVE OWLETT: Right.
21 MS. VERELST: I would echo that, definitely.
22 They're already doing it. Their results are up. They are
23 not the last ones to certify their election and we're not
24 waiting on their results for five, six days. So they've
25 obviously got a good plan. I would check with them. And
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1 again, as far as the audits go and the pre-canvassing, we
2 advertise a pre-canvass, we advertise a canvass, and we
3 welcome public to view that. We want to be as transparent
4 as we can.
5 REPRESENTATIVE OWLETT: Thank you for joining us.
6 And anything we can do to bring that standard and
7 uniformity to it is going to be so important. Thank you
8 for your time and thank you for your service.
9 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN SCHEMEL: Thank you,
10 Representative.
11 Representative Nelson?
12 REPRESENTATIVE NELSON: Thank you, Mr. Chair.
13 It's a great testimony. You know, some of what
14 we have learned over these last hearings is that, you know,
15 election guidance and all of the hard work that the people
16 of Westmoreland County and counties from across the State
17 of Pennsylvania have really put into this election.
18 You know, unfortunately, there were maybe a
19 handful of counties that chose not to follow the guidance.
20 And something, if you would be able to touch on, you
21 mentioned earlier in your testimony, Hope, that you had
22 worked real hard to try to get that information up as soon
23 as 8:00 arrived. There were certain areas of the states
24 that even precinct voting information didn't seem to get
25 uploaded into the system, so it was almost like what I
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1 would refer to maybe as the Georgia effect or that we saw
2 counties with much larger square miles driving in these
3 thumb drives to be uploaded and reported, and then more
4 condensed areas that had shorter distance, didn't seem to
5 get their information up at the same rate.
6 Is there requirements for the timeliness of the
7 posting of these or could you touch on what would cause
8 such a disparity when there's so much shorter of a distance
9 to travel once a precinct closes?
10 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN SCHEMEL: And if I might --
11 MS. VERELST: I -- oh, go ahead.
12 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN SCHEMEL: -- just interject
13 here, since the context of this discussion is in regard to
14 audits I guess perhaps Representative Nelson what you
15 intended to put at the end of your question was, and would
16 an audit necessarily -- would an audit, you know, bring
17 that evidence or that information out.
18 REPRESENTATIVE NELSON: Thank you, Mr. Chair.
19 MS. VERELST: To answer the last part of the
20 question first, I don't know that an audit would help bring
21 that information out because again the current audits that
22 we're doing right now are just focusing on ballots cast and
23 votes cast. However, I can -- and I can only speak for
24 Sullivan and maybe Thad has some more input, but we have
25 a -- some of our people have to travel 45 minutes to bring
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1 me their thumb drive, so -- and of course, they're kind of
2 the last ones bringing it, of course, and then we have one
3 right across the street here, and she was here by ten after
4 8. You know, so I really don't -- I don't have any insight
5 as to why some of the counties took longer.
6 I will say -- and I know this goes back to pre-
7 canvass a little bit -- but it's hard to run an election,
8 especially in larger counties, where, you know, you've got
9 thousands of voters that could be calling you all day long,
10 and do call you all day long and polling places that call
11 you for issues that arrive. To start pre-canvassing on
12 Election Day, we're busy running an election on Election
13 Day. So it's kind of hard to start then and then expect to
14 have results at 8:00. It's just -- it's not going to
15 happen. You can't do both.
16 DR. HALL: And you know, I would say, you know,
17 part of it, too, is, you know, based on -- like we have 90
18 precincts and so you know, we go through a process before
19 we upload anything of -- you know, we do a basic, you know,
20 verification of like, is it the right thumb drive from the
21 right precinct --
22 MS. VERELST: Oh, yeah.
23 DR. HALL: -- we have to check everything in
24 correctly, and so there's a whole process that goes into
25 that. And so I can imagine if I had 300 precincts
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1 reporting to me, it would just be slow because you have to
2 check in every one, and you have to interrogate those poll
3 workers, did you bring everything back? Is this the right
4 thumb drive? Where is your poll book? Because -- this is
5 going to shock you, but at the end of the day people make
6 mistakes.
7 And so you do have to do a bit of an
8 interrogation of people. And so that can slow everything
9 down and, you know and like Hope said, you know, if
10 you're -- if -- you know, for counties that did pre-
11 canvassing, you know, they had to kind of kill that and
12 then go into election night mode.
13 In Mercer County, we did not pre-canvass because
14 I refused to because election day is about election day,
15 and canvassing absentee ballots is about another day. And
16 you know, in Arizona, we did not count any absentee ballots
17 on Election Day. We just did Election Day, even though 70
18 percent of our voters voted by mail. And so you have to
19 kind of focus on what you need to focus on. And so you
20 know, for those giant counties that were doing both, I feel
21 bad for them.
22 REPRESENTATIVE NELSON: And I appreciate the
23 acknowledgement because as I'm understanding more about the
24 process, there is a timestamp that could be audited when
25 that thumb drive leaves, when that precinct close, when it
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1 comes to the courthouse --
2 DR. HALL: Right. Yes.
3 REPRESENTATIVE NELSON: -- and the amount --
4 MS. VERELST: Yep.
5 REPRESENTATIVE NELSON: -- of time it would take
6 to be uploaded because there just seems to be a
7 considerable inconsistency between a few areas that -- and
8 those areas ironically received millions of extra dollars
9 for election operations, yet they seem to be some of the
10 least efficient counties in uploading transparent results.
11 So thank you very much.
12 Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
13 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN SCHEMEL: Thank you,
14 Representative.
15 Chairwoman Davidson.
16 MINORITY CHAIRWOMAN DAVIDSON: Thank you, Mr.
17 Chairman. I know -- first of all, you all have been -- the
18 two of you have just been amazing in your testimony today.
19 I thank you so much. I think it's just been fair and
20 accurate and thorough, and the counties that you represent
21 are blessed to have you. One of you mentioned having 90
22 precincts or so in your county, and I have 90 -- close to
23 90 precincts in one of my five towns in Delaware County.
24 And I remember on the primary, which was the first look at
25 how we were going to conduct Act 77. There was a traffic
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1 jam. Everyone was trying to get to the courthouse with
2 their thumb drive. You know, all of the precincts
3 from -- the courthouse is probably about 25, 30 minutes
4 away, but it literally took election folks two hours to get
5 to the courthouse because they were stuck in traffic
6 because it was so much traffic trying to get to this one
7 location, and there's only a couple of roads to get there.
8 They were stuck in traffic for hours.
9 And so when we talk about more populated
10 counties, there's more that you have to consider in terms
11 of how people are getting, you know, their information to
12 the courthouse and where it has to go. It's going to a
13 central location, and it has to get there. I think that
14 needs to be audited. But so much could be resolved through
15 pre-canvassing, as you all have said. And I think that's a
16 bipartisan way of looking at what we can do to improve Act
17 77, which by the way, I did not vote for because I felt
18 like it had a lot of holes in it. And the timeframe that
19 you all had to enact this new law was really a burdensome
20 endeavor for many election officials.
21 And then in the midst of that, we also had COVID.
22 So you had new precinct workers, you had new election
23 boards, you had new precincts because you couldn't do them
24 in the senior centers anymore, and so you had a lot of
25 newness. And you know, some directors just threw up their
86
1 hands and like, you know, I'm not doing this. This is too
2 much.
3 So I just really commend you, and I just really
4 think that, once again, these hearings have proven that our
5 county election officials did a yeoman's job of making sure
6 that our election was fair, free, accurate, and as uniform
7 as possible, given the different variances that we just
8 talked about between the counties. Whether you're a large
9 county or you're a small county, every county did the best
10 that they could to get the results as soon as possible, but
11 we're handcuffed by not being able to pre-canvass. So I
12 think that that is something that has come out of this
13 hearing today that we could work towards in a bipartisan
14 way to relieve our election officials of the burden of not
15 being able to swiftly get to the results of an election.
16 And I thank you again for your testimony, both of you.
17 MS. VERELST: That is so much appreciated.
18 DR. HALL: Thank you very much.
19 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN SCHEMEL: Very good. Thank
20 you, Chairwoman.
21 And thank you both for testifying today. Dr.
22 Hall, I'm familiar with Coconino County is, and it's almost
23 as beautiful as the 67 counties in Pennsylvania, but we're
24 certainly glad to have you here. And I think you made good
25 comments -- both of you about how we can, you know, have
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1 improvements to our system and look to our sister states to
2 see what they're doing that's successful. So thank you
3 very much.
4 DR. HALL: Thank you.
5 MS. VERELST: Thank you very much for having us.
6 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN SCHEMEL: Very good. Thank
7 you.
8 So now we have our last panel. We have Jonathan
9 Marks Deputy Secretary for Elections and Commissions of the
10 Department of State. Welcome back Deputy Secretary Marks.
11 This is your third appearance. On your fourth appearance,
12 you get a free t-shirt and medium drink, so we look forward
13 to that.
14 MR. MARKS: Yes. I should get a punch card or
15 something that I can turn in.
16 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN SCHEMEL: We are --
17 MR. MARKS: It's great to see you. Please pass
18 along my best wishes to Chairman Grove.
19 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN SCHEMEL: Thanks. I will. And
20 we are grateful for your time and patience.
21 We're also joined by Liz Howard. She is Senior
22 Counsel at the Brennan Center for Justice Democracy program
23 at the New York City University. Welcome Dr. Howard.
24 So if I can ask you both to raise your right
25 hands.
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1 (Parties sworn)
2 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN SCHEMEL: Very well. Thank you
3 very much. As with the other testifiers, we'll give you
4 the opportunity if you have any opening remarks to make
5 before we get to members' questions.
6 Deputy Secretary, we'll start with you if you
7 have any opening remarks.
8 MR. MARKS: I do not. As you mentioned, Mr.
9 Chairman, this is my third hearing, so I think I would
10 better be one in the background than the -- I will say, I'm
11 very much looking forward to this. And I had the benefit
12 of listening in to the testimony of Hope and Thad, two
13 really great election officials. And I can't say enough
14 about all of our county election officials and our precinct
15 election officials, for that matter, for the great job they
16 do. And I was very happy to have time to take in a good
17 portion of their testimony. But again, thank you for
18 having me, and I look forward to answering the Committee's
19 questions.
20 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN SCHEMEL: Very well. Thank
21 you.
22 Ms. Howard, do you have any opening remarks that
23 you'd like to make?
24 DR. HOWARD: Yes, sir.
25 Chairman Schemel, Chairwoman Davidson, members of
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1 the House Government Committee, thank you so much for the
2 opportunity to testify today about risk-limiting audits.
3 The Brennan Center for Justice is a non-partisan
4 law and policy institute that focuses on democracy. We've
5 studied our country’s voting systems for over a decade and
6 convened the taskforce responsible for the first systemic
7 review of the security of our country's voting systems back
8 in 2005, and we've been long-term proponents of common-
9 sense policies that go to protect and secure our elections
10 infrastructure. And as you know in Pennsylvania, the
11 elections infrastructure as of April 2020 now incorporates
12 two of the most critical election security components.
13 So first, you have statewide paper ballots, and
14 second you have post-election audits, which is two critical
15 election security components. And while paper ballots may
16 be new, post-election audits in Pennsylvania have been the
17 norm for decades. And actually when the Legislature first
18 passed the mandatory post-election audit statute, it really
19 established Pennsylvania as a leader in election security.
20 But however, there's been much progress over the
21 past four decades in election security since 1980, and with
22 Pennsylvania's recent transition over to the use of
23 statewide paper ballots, election officials can now take
24 advantage of more efficient and more effective auditing
25 methods. So specifically, I'm talking about risk-limiting
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1 audits.
2 So risk-limiting audits are an effective and
3 efficient type of post-election audit, and the RLAs use
4 statistical methodologies coupled with a hand review of
5 paper ballots to provide confidence in the accuracy of the
6 outcome. And they're efficient in that they require review
7 only of enough ballots to provide an acceptable statistical
8 measurement of risk.
9 So in practice, what does that mean? It means
10 when the margin of victory is large the number of ballots
11 that we have to review is small. And when the margin of
12 victory is small, the number of ballots we have to review
13 is comparatively larger. And you can see exactly how this
14 works, looking at the audit pilots that were conducted in
15 Pennsylvania just last year. So for the presidential
16 primaries, which had margins of about 86 percent or
17 41 -- or -- and 61 percent, we -- the sample that we
18 reviewed of ballots was only 400 ballots across the entire
19 state, whereas the number of ballots that we reviewed after
20 the November presidential election was north of 40,000
21 ballots across the state.
22 So I think you can easily see how the risk-
23 limiting audit is a much more flexible tool than the
24 statutory audit currently required, which always requires
25 that flat two percent no matter what the margin of victory
91
1 is. And then, you know, and I'm also happy to talk about
2 how the Arizona audit compares to your audit and/or the
3 risk-limiting audit.
4 And so because of all of the pilots that we've
5 done in Pennsylvania starting back in 2019, the Department
6 of State and the Audit Working Group have been able to
7 collect constructive feedback from Pennsylvania election
8 officials at the state and local level about how to make
9 risk-limiting audits work best in Pennsylvania, kind of, as
10 we look forward. And really I've been very honored to have
11 the opportunity to work directly with many local election
12 officials, and so much of the feedback that I've heard from
13 them is that they are very appreciative at how easy the
14 risk-limiting audit procedure is. And I hope that you will
15 consider replacing the current post-election audit with a
16 risk-limiting audit. And I really appreciate your time
17 today, and I look forward to your questions.
18 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN SCHEMEL: Very well, Ms.
19 Howard. Thank you very much.
20 Our first question comes from Representative
21 Diamond.
22 REPRESENTATIVE DIAMOND: Thank you very much.
23 Deputy Secretary Marks, good to see you again.
24 Dr. Howard, thank you for joining us. You pretty much
25 covered the topic I was going to ask about, so it -- which
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1 is the difference between the two percent audit and the
2 risk-limiting audit. Can you tell us the benefits of each
3 of those or the drawbacks each of -- in each of those in
4 both the category of verifying the election result and in
5 cost? Can you talk about that?
6 DR. HOWARD: So -- right from the efficiency
7 standpoint, again, like this -- the risk-limiting audit in
8 some cases is going to require review and therefore
9 potentially cost less -- a smaller number of ballots than
10 the traditional current statutory post-election audit. The
11 post-election audit that's required under statute would've
12 required a review of many more than 400 ballots statewide
13 after the primary. So that is one of the benefits.
14 Now, that is not always going to be the case,
15 right? So when you have elections with small margins, the
16 number of ballots you have to review is going to increase.
17 But talking about whether -- the benefits of a risk-
18 limiting audit about its effectiveness, so the risk-
19 limiting audit because the potential sample of ballots that
20 we review are from the entire state or the entire universe
21 of ballots cast in a particular election. That -- the
22 audit that we are conducting -- the risk-limiting audit is
23 going to provide confirmation of the outcome of that
24 election. Whereas the traditional post-election audits are
25 going to provide confirmation that individual tabulators
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1 are working as they should have and were accurately
2 counting votes cast on those individual machines. So the
3 risk-limiting audit provides us with confirmation of the
4 outcome, whereas the traditional audit is going to provide
5 confirmation of the accuracy of individual machines.
6 REPRESENTATIVE DIAMOND: Okay. And just to
7 clarify here, when you're talking about both the two
8 percent and the risk-limiting audit, this is simply
9 reaching in to a pile of ballots, which are anonymous, and
10 making sure that they're counted accurately, correct?
11 DR. HOWARD: So the risk-limiting audit -- the
12 type of risk-limiting audit that we conduct in Pennsylvania
13 is called a ballot polling audit. So as Ms. Verelst was
14 mentioning earlier, the state -- a central authority has to
15 collect what's called a ballot manifest from every county.
16 So a ballet manifest is a listing of all of the ballots
17 cast and their storage location.
18 So for instance, a county will send us a ballot
19 manifest that says, you know, Howard Precinct. Right? And
20 that has 712 ballots. And then it will say Marks Precinct,
21 you know, 407 ballots. So that manifest will be uploaded
22 to a central location and the seed selection ceremony, that
23 you heard Ms. Verelst talk about earlier, is where
24 we obtain a random number, which is a 20-number seed. And
25 that number is entered into the computer, which mixes up
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1 all of the ballots submitted in the ballot manifest and
2 randomly selects ballots in those containers. So for
3 instance --
4 REPRESENTATIVE DIAMOND: Okay. If I could
5 just -- because I think I --
6 DR. HOWARD: Yes.
7 REPRESENTATIVE DIAMOND: -- might have stated my
8 question wrong. What I'm trying to get at to establish for
9 the general public, who's watching this is, this is an
10 audit of ballots and counting. It is not an audit of where
11 that ballot originated from, whether -- you know, who sent
12 that ballot in or anything like that, right? It's
13 just -- it's a ballot-counting review, correct?
14 DR. HOWARD: Yes, sir.
15 REPRESENTATIVE DIAMOND: Okay.
16 DR. HOWARD: It's a ballot tabulation audit.
17 REPRESENTATIVE DIAMOND: All right. Okay. Let
18 me move on to some just general questions about audits.
19 Which auditing category supported by generally accepted
20 government auditing standards is a risk-limiting audit
21 amongst these three; an attestation engagement, a review of
22 financial statement, or performance audit? Are
23 those -- any of those a risk-limiting audit?
24 DR. HOWARD: The risk-limiting audit is going to
25 check whether or not there has been any unintentional
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1 errors in the programming of the voting equipment or
2 intentional problems with the equipment that causes a
3 change in the reported outcome versus how the ballots
4 should've been counted. I would say that we could
5 ask -- the Auditor General is much better situated
6 than, certainly, I am to answer what category of audit that
7 might fall into.
8 REPRESENTATIVE DIAMOND: Okay. So just let me
9 restate the question. Is a risk-limiting audit -- does
10 that methodology meet the generally accepted government
11 auditing standards?
12 DR. HOWARD: I'm not sufficiently familiar with
13 the governmental auditing standards, so I -- but we can
14 find out and get back to you.
15 REPRESENTATIVE DIAMOND: Okay. And again, this
16 will just follow up on my earlier question. What is the
17 major deficiency of a risk-limiting audit relative to
18 providing assurance relative to whether or not an election
19 result and the underlying system are accurate? And I think
20 we clarified that already, but we're talking about the
21 ballots and the counting of the ballots but not the
22 underlying system that has actually produced those ballots
23 in the county office, correct?
24 DR. HOWARD: Right. The risk-limiting audit goes
25 to, like, providing confirmation that the ballots that were
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1 cast were counted correctly.
2 REPRESENTATIVE DIAMOND: Is a risk-limiting audit
3 able to detect any kind of fraud or provide recommendations
4 for improvement by its very design?
5 DR. HOWARD: A risk-limiting audit is able
6 to -- you know, and we've certainly seen this in the pilots
7 that we've been conducting across the state in partnership
8 with state and local election officials. A risk-limiting
9 audit is able to help local election officials work
10 on -- especially important in Pennsylvania where there's a
11 less mature, perhaps, ballot storage and retention policy
12 across the Commonwealth than in other states that have been
13 using paper ballots for many years, right? But a process
14 where we go back and review ballots that were cast requires
15 us to go and look at the storage procedures in place in all
16 of the different counties. And I think that there are, you
17 know, multiple election officials who have found it
18 beneficial because they understand and can improve their
19 subsequent ballot storage and retention procedures.
20 REPRESENTATIVE DIAMOND: Okay. Thank you, Dr.
21 Howard.
22 Mr. Chairman, I have one follow-up question, and
23 I would like to direct this to Deputy Secretary Marks.
24 How do post-election audits, specifically the two
25 percent audit or the RLA, do they meet -- how do they meet
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1 generally accepted government auditing standards, and if
2 they don't why do we call them audits?
3 MR. MARKS: Well, again, I -- you know, I would
4 probably -- you know, the Auditor General may have a better
5 answer for that. But you know, these -- this risk-limiting
6 audit or the statistical sample required by the election
7 code, these are very specific audits of ballots and
8 tabulation of ballots, and they have a very specific
9 statutory purpose. So whether they fit into any of those
10 general categories or not, I don't know. But these are the
11 mechanisms that are in place.
12 You know, we certainly have Pennsylvania's
13 current statutory mechanism, which -- and I wanted to make
14 a point, you know, as a follow-up to what Dr. Howard was
15 saying, you know, each of these counties, the current
16 statistical sample -- each county does it independent of
17 the other counties. So on a state -- in a statewide
18 election, there's very little value in the two percent
19 statistical sample. So again, you know, I don't want to
20 get into a discussion about what audit means. What I can
21 tell you is, this is what it means in the context of
22 elections. You know, post-election pre-certification
23 ballot audits are there to ensure that the ballots were
24 correctly tabulated.
25 REPRESENTATIVE DIAMOND: All right. Thank you,
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1 Deputy Secretary Marks.
2 Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I just want to add that
3 it occurs to me from what we've heard today that it might
4 be a mistake to be calling these audits, and we might more
5 generally want to call them internal reviews. Because when
6 I hear the word audit, I hear like real officialdom, you
7 know what I mean? And it seems like more of an internal
8 review process than an audit. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
9 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN SCHEMEL: Thank you.
10 Representative Solomon.
11 REPRESENTATIVE SOLOMON: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
12 First, a question to Dr. Howard. Dr. Howard, so
13 it seems like moving to risk-limiting audits presents both
14 logistical and administrative hurdles. And I'm wondering
15 how, in your research, other states have done some of that
16 training to get counties up to speed.
17 DR. HOWARD: So other states have done pretty
18 much exactly the process that Pennsylvania is undergoing
19 right now, where the state has partnered with local
20 election officials and conducted pilots, collected the
21 feedback from, not only the local election officials, but
22 members of the public and other stakeholders, so that they
23 could work on uniform procedures that work across the
24 Commonwealth and identifying best practices in one county
25 that we can then transport to another county.
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1 So this is definitely the route that, in general,
2 election officials certainly at the local level much prefer
3 as opposed to, you know, the state or perhaps the
4 legislature just issuing a mandate without providing
5 guidance. So the goal of these pilots, right, is to work
6 together so that everyone can agree on some commonsense
7 policies about how to adopt this in Pennsylvania.
8 REPRESENTATIVE SOLOMON: And Dr. Howard, you
9 bring up the importance of kind of coming to, sort of,
10 bubbling up from the 67 counties best practices that work.
11 And in your written testimony, you talk right now about
12 both the statutory requirements we have and also the Stein
13 decision. Can you talk about how that creates confusion
14 amongst the counties?
15 DR. HOWARD: Well, the settlement agreement
16 required that the Secretary of State to create an audit
17 working board and requires the Secretary to conduct pilots
18 starting in 2021. So the Department of State put together
19 the Audit Working Board pretty immediately after the Stein
20 settlement. And so the Audit Working Board, which is
21 mainly populated with local election officials, like Ms.
22 Verelst who testified earlier today, and local election
23 officials from across the Commonwealth, including Dr.
24 Hall's predecessor, Jeff Greenburg.
25 So you know, I think that currently the statutory
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1 audit that's required under Pennsylvania law does not meet
2 the requirements of the audit that is required under the
3 settlement. So it appears that unless the Legislature
4 revises the current statute, that there could be two audits
5 that local election officials have to conduct prior to
6 certification. And as you've heard, right, they're already
7 straining under the current time restraints for their
8 responsibilities.
9 REPRESENTATIVE SOLOMON: Thank you so much, Dr.
10 Howard.
11 Mr. Marks, I don't know if you were here for the
12 Auditor General's testimony, but I just want to go back to
13 a discussion on the SURE System audit. You're familiar
14 with that audit, right?
15 MR. MARKS: I am. Yes.
16 REPRESENTATIVE SOLOMON: Okay. So Mr. Marks,
17 when -- you are in the process of updating the SURE System,
18 and I'm wondering what factors did the Department consider
19 when putting out that RFP to the different recommendations
20 that the Auditor had brought up?
21 MR. MARKS: Yes. Actually the two things were
22 very much tied together. And when the Department entered
23 into an agreement with the Auditor General's Office to do
24 the audit, one of the primary reasons for that was to
25 inform our decision making as we crafted the RFP for a new
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1 SURE database. And a lot of the recommendations made by
2 the Auditor General were taken into account, and in fact,
3 written in to the general requirements of the RFP for the
4 new system. And right now, we are in the process of
5 working with the counties on the more specific requirements
6 to make sure that the new system meets Pennsylvania law and
7 meets the needs of our county election officials.
8 REPRESENTATIVE SOLOMON: Thank you, Mr. Marks.
9 Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
10 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN SCHEMEL: Thank you,
11 Representative.
12 Representative Young.
13 REPRESENTATIVE YOUNG: Dr. Howard, when you
14 stated that you counted and tabulated the ballots
15 correctly, were you also taking in consideration the point
16 of origin to ensure each validity?
17 DR. HOWARD: So the risk-limiting audit is
18 limited to serving as a tabulation audit. So the risk-
19 limiting audit does not -- well, the risk-limiting audit is
20 focused on whether or not the ballots cast were counted
21 correctly. That is what the risk-limiting audit does.
22 REPRESENTATIVE YOUNG: Thank you.
23 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN SCHEMEL: Thank you,
24 Representative Young.
25 Representative Keefer.
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1 REPRESENTATIVE KEEFER: Thank you.
2 Dr. Howard, the U.S. Election Assistance
3 Commission report on post-election audit, it defines the
4 four methods of risk-limiting audit: the ballot level
5 comparison, the batch level comparison, ballot polling, and
6 batch polling. Now, I already heard you say that you used
7 the ballot polling was the method that you used. Okay.
8 Could you explain what the difference is between those four
9 different methods and the advantages of that?
10 DR. HOWARD: So the advantages are basically
11 going to relate to efficiency, and the most efficient type
12 of risk-limiting audit is a ballot comparison audit. So
13 the ballot comparison risk-limiting audit is going to allow
14 you so to compare an individual paper ballot with exactly
15 how the machine counted that individual ballot. So for
16 instance, if we decided to draw -- you know, ballot number,
17 you know, 72 was randomly selected from the Howard
18 Precinct, right, election officials would count down to
19 ballot number 72 and compare it to the voting machines
20 record of how that voting machine counted ballot number 72.
21 That type of audit is more efficient that the ballot
22 polling method, in that there are fewer ballots required to
23 be reviewed than there would be in the equivalent ballot
24 polling audit. However, that type of risk-limiting audit
25 is not possible in Pennsylvania currently because you must
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1 have -- you need to be able to keep your ballots in the
2 same order that they were scanned, and that's not possible
3 when ballots are scanned in precinct. And historically,
4 Pennsylvania relies heavily on in-precinct voting.
5 That is in comparison to the ballot polling
6 audit, which I think the best analogy to the ballot polling
7 audit is to think of, you know, when you're cooking broth,
8 and you want to decide whether or not it has enough salt in
9 it, right, you stir up the broth, right, and you can take
10 just one teaspoon of the broth, and that is going to
11 provide you, right there, with enough information for you
12 to know whether that whole batch of broth has a sufficient
13 amount of salt in it. So that's what the ballot polling
14 audit is, right? We mix up the ballots and then randomly
15 select ballots from across the entire state, and then we
16 analyze that sample, and we determine whether or not the
17 information from the sample provides us with sufficient
18 statistical reason to believe that the outcome is accurate.
19 REPRESENTATIVE KEEFER: All right. But you
20 didn't -- so you continuously referenced the ballot
21 polling, which you did and you -- but you didn't
22 differentiate between the ballot level comparison or the
23 batch level comparison.
24 DR. HOWARD: So the batch level comparison is
25 more similar to the traditional two percent audit that you
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1 have, but it is similar to the ballot polling audit -- or
2 sorry, the ballot comparison audit in that, again, you
3 would be hand counting an entire batch and comparing that
4 to how the tabulator counted that batch of audits.
5 REPRESENTATIVE KEEFER: Okay. And so you chose
6 this one, you said it was more efficient to do the ballot
7 polling -- or the -- yes --
8 DR. HOWARD: This is --
9 REPRESENTATIVE KEEFER: -- the ballot polling.
10 DR. HOWARD: Yeah. This is the most efficient
11 method of risk-limiting audit that in our pilots we've been
12 able to conduct.
13 REPRESENTATIVE KEEFER: Okay. So in -- and in
14 addition, in the same report with the U.S. Election
15 Assistance Commission, I have a question regarding the
16 range. Like, what range would an election be close enough
17 that a risk-limiting audit provides value in confirming the
18 results, but it's not close enough to actually trigger a
19 full manual recount?
20 DR. HOWARD: So I mean, I think, you know, if we
21 look at the past presidential election here in the
22 Commonwealth. It was a very close election, and the sample
23 size that we needed to look at was just north of 40,000
24 ballots.
25 REPRESENTATIVE KEEFER: But not close enough to
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1 actually trigger a full recount?
2 DR. HOWARD: Correct. My -- I believe that the
3 recount -- the mandatory recount law is -- the margin is
4 0.5 percent.
5 MR. MARKS: That's correct. Yes.
6 REPRESENTATIVE KEEFER: Right.
7 MR. MARKS: The statutory threshold is 0.5
8 percent or less.
9 REPRESENTATIVE KEEFER: So in this report, it
10 identifies a possibility that a risk-limiting audit of a
11 close election, which is less than 0.5 percent or in some
12 methods it's 10 percent, it can lead to a full manual
13 recount. And there's a statistical difference or benefit
14 from a risk-limiting audit compared to the election codes
15 recount of a statewide races that are closer than the 0.5
16 percent, which is what I was getting to as far as when it
17 would be -- you know, what is that percentage?
18 DR. HOWARD: Yes, ma'am. It's all about, you
19 know, finding the right balance between providing, you
20 know, some confirmation of the accuracy of the outcome,
21 without having to undergo the full expense and all of the
22 other resources required to conduct a recount. So where is
23 the right balance there? And that is what the risk-
24 limiting audit is built to do.
25 REPRESENTATIVE KEEFER: Thank you.
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1 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN SCHEMEL: For those members of
2 the public that might be listening, the Department of State
3 has, on its website at Votes PA, under post-election audits
4 actually a really good illustration and short videos that
5 differentiate the different kinds of post-election audits.
6 Next we have Representative Mackenzie.
7 All right. We seem to have lost him.
8 So Representative Miller.
9 REPRESENTATIVE MILLER: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
10 And thank you for your testimony here today. I
11 have a couple questions. The pilot program -- the RLA
12 pilot program that was conducted, did it, in fact, do all
13 four types, the ballot comparison, batch level comparison,
14 ballot polling, and batch polling across the Commonwealth
15 in the pilot?
16 DR. HOWARD: No.
17 REPRESENTATIVE MILLER: And why did it not?
18 DR. HOWARD: So because we know that the ballots
19 are not kept in order that they were cast, so we know that
20 we can't pilot the most efficient type of risk-limiting
21 audit because Pennsylvania relies heavily on in-person
22 Election Day voting, which doesn't allow for us to keep the
23 ballots in the order that they were cast, which is
24 necessary for the ballot comparison type of risk-limiting
25 audit.
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1 REPRESENTATIVE MILLER: Okay. Thank you.
2 My next question has to do with the U.S. Election
3 Assistance Commission reported -- and I'm going to quote
4 this, “for comparison audits, an auditor must be able to
5 trace a ballot to its cast vote record, CVR.” It goes on
6 to state that “if legally allowed, using a voting system
7 that can imprint ballots with a unique identifier is the
8 optimal solution. Another solution is the Bates stamp,
9 hand-marked ballots in the order in which they were cast or
10 add removable sticker with a unique ballot identifier to
11 each ballot. The least optimal method is to keep ballots
12 in the same order in which they were scanned.” Which of
13 these approaches were used in the pilot audits, and which
14 should we be look to -- which should we look for to
15 possibly considering to adopt as a uniform standard?
16 DR. HOWARD: So that discussion relates to
17 specifically to ballot comparison audits. That discussion
18 does not apply to ballot polling audits. So if we were
19 looking for -- you know, again, if Pennsylvania decides
20 that they want to move so that there is more heavy reliance
21 on absentee or mail-in voting, right, we could perhaps try
22 to do what's called a hybrid audit where we conduct the
23 most efficient audit on the ballots that came in via mail
24 and the slightly lesser efficient risk-limiting audit on
25 the ballots cast in person on Election Day. So and
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1 if -- again, if we could do the hybrid, which kind of
2 marries the -- again, the most efficient type of RLA
3 possible for the different universes of the ballots cast,
4 you know, depending upon what, you know, this body and
5 local election officials feel is best for Pennsylvania,
6 there are options as far as -- you know, some equipment,
7 the central scanners that many jurisdictions recently
8 purchased because of the increase in mail-in and absentee
9 voting in this past election would -- when it is scanned
10 through the tabulator apply a unique identifier on that
11 ballot. So that when you go back and do the comparison to
12 how the machine counted that particular ballot, you can
13 make sure that you are correctly comparing the cast vote
14 record to the correct ballot.
15 You know, because again, I think this was
16 mentioned earlier, but election officials are humans, and
17 so sometimes, right, like, it would be possible if you had
18 scanned a batch of ballots using the centralized tabulator,
19 you might drop them, right? And so they wouldn't be in the
20 same order that they were scanned, which unless you had
21 those unique ID numbers on the ballots would then make the
22 ballot comparison audit impossible.
23 REPRESENTATIVE MILLER: Okay. Question, one of
24 the -- we're looking at various states and what they do,
25 and I was interested in looking at what Massachusetts does.
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1 And they select randomly three percent of the precincts in
2 their state to conduct a full hand count. Can you comment
3 on the pros and cons of that methodology that Massachusetts
4 uses?
5 DR. HOWARD: Well, I think it's going to depend
6 upon, you know, a couple of different factors. So
7 including how, you know, how do they randomly select the
8 precincts? Does the state do it? Does the state collect
9 the information from all of the jurisdictions that are
10 responsible for administering the election? I would have a
11 lot of questions about whether or not an audit of a
12 statewide election could be conducted without a central
13 authority that is coordinating and ensuring that the
14 uniform procedures are used across the state.
15 REPRESENTATIVE MILLER: So your concern about
16 that is uniformity?
17 DR. HOWARD: For a statewide audit, I think that
18 uniformity is critical.
19 REPRESENTATIVE MILLER: So using the
20 Massachusetts approach with uniformity would be acceptable?
21 DR. HOWARD: So to the extent that the
22 Massachusetts process uses a flat percentage, right? So
23 it's going to require the review of the same percentage of
24 audits no matter if you have a margin of victory of 86
25 percent, right, or 0.6 percent. Because of progress that
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1 has been made specifically in the election security area,
2 we know that we have more efficient and more effective
3 auditing methods than what is being proposed in
4 Massachusetts.
5 REPRESENTATIVE MILLER: Okay.
6 And Secretary Marks, not to ignore you here, and
7 this question for you --
8 MR. MARKS: It's okay.
9 REPRESENTATIVE MILLER: -- I noted that the
10 Department put out a press statement about the RLA results
11 from the work group and so forth. Is that available to the
12 public?
13 MR. MARKS: We can make the report -- and the
14 report really is statistics from its data from the
15 statewide database that was used. But we can make that
16 available. I'd have to talk to our communications office
17 about whether we're going to publish the data on our
18 website or not, but we can certainly make it available to
19 the Committee.
20 REPRESENTATIVE MILLER: Yeah. Please do that
21 because that's a public document, of course, and that would
22 be helpful information.
23 MR. MARKS: Yeah.
24 REPRESENTATIVE MILLER: Thank you both.
25 And thank you, Mr. Chairman.
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1 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN SCHEMEL: Thank you,
2 Representative.
3 Representative Ryan.
4 REPRESENTATIVE RYAN: Mr. Chairman, thank you.
5 And again, both, thank you so, so much for the
6 testimony.
7 Just a question the risk-limiting audit is a
8 great idea. We use it in the accounting profession
9 frequently, but it's usually done as a result and in
10 conjunction with a performance audit that would typically
11 have been done of an overall system on an annual basis so
12 that the risk-limiting audit has more substance to those
13 types of control deficiencies, significant deficiencies,
14 and material weaknesses that were identified during the
15 performance audit. Would you all be supportive of such an
16 effort to have a performance audit done of whatever
17 election systems we might have in the Commonwealth, for
18 which, then, the criteria of a risk-limiting audit could be
19 determined?
20 MR. MARKS: I will -- I'll answer that first. I
21 mean, and certainly the Department would be supportive of
22 anything that increases voters' confidence in election
23 administration. You know, if you're talking about a
24 statewide performance audit of counties, and certainly
25 there would be logistical challenges that would have to be
112
1 met. I don't know, you know, how you would go about doing
2 that.
3 You know, and I will point out that right now
4 currently the election code -- and I think we all agree,
5 and I think that's part of the reason we're here, that the
6 election code is old, and it is in need of -- and again, I
7 heard, you know, I heard testimony from Ms. Verelst and Dr.
8 Hall earlier, and I think I certainly concur with, you
9 know, them that we need to update the election code. I
10 don't think any of this was contemplated when it was
11 written.
12 But right now the process, all of the
13 reconciliation -- and I'm -- you know, I'll concede right
14 out of the gate that's not a performance audit necessarily,
15 but all the reconciliation is done as part of the official
16 canvass, which is a public meeting. So at the time the law
17 was written, I think the General Assembly anticipated is
18 that that would be sufficient to give voters confidence, to
19 give the political parties confidence in the outcome of the
20 election.
21 But an audit, whether it's conducted by an
22 individual county controller or, you know, someone else of
23 the actual processes and procedures, I don't think it could
24 hurt, I guess. You know, we would just have to talk about
25 the details of what that would look like if we were writing
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1 it in to the election code.
2 REPRESENTATIVE RYAN: Okay. First of all, thank
3 you very much.
4 And Dr. Howard, did you want to add anything?
5 You looked like you did earlier.
6 DR. HOWARD: Well, I would just say, right, like,
7 it's like Deputy Secretary Marks suggested. It's going to
8 depend upon the details, but you know, in general, having
9 more transparency to the extent that it leads to greater
10 voter confidence is a good thing.
11 REPRESENTATIVE RYAN: It does. Thank you very
12 much.
13 And Mr. Chairman, that's all my questions.
14 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN SCHEMEL: Thank you.
15 Representative Miller.
16 REPRESENTATIVE MILLER: Thank you for the
17 following up question.
18 Secretary Marks, just a question, Thad earlier,
19 Dr. Hall, had testified about not only the audits relative
20 to the numbers, the ballots, the count of the actual
21 election itself but also the importance of the process.
22 Would the Department of State be in favor of an audit
23 that -- when we're talking about the RLAs and all that
24 relative to the numbers, would the Department be in favor
25 of an audit of the processes as the election goes
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1 on -- subsequent elections?
2 MR. MARKS: Yeah. Again, I think the Department
3 would support any effort to, you know, increase voters'
4 confidence in the outcome of an election. And as I replied
5 to, you know, Representative Ryan, you know, we'd have to
6 see the details of what that would look like and who would
7 conduct it because for it to be effective, you'd have to do
8 this in all 67 counties, you know, to ensure that the
9 process is being followed.
10 And right now, the statutory scheme is that, you
11 know, there's an assumption that there are political party
12 or candidate, you know, representatives present throughout
13 the canvass. We know that's not the case. It certainly
14 was the case in the presidential election, but I don't know
15 how much interest there is in, you know, municipal
16 elections like this year's election to actually stay for
17 the entire canvass and watch all of the various processes
18 play out.
19 So you know, to the extent that you could have
20 some entity do, you know, an audit of the process
21 efficiently, you know, certainly it would help. And it
22 would really just depend on, you know, I -- how you work
23 that in to the current election schedule and who's
24 responsible for it.
25 REPRESENTATIVE MILLER: Thank you very much.
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1 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN SCHEMEL: Chairwoman Davidson,
2 do you have any questions?
3 MINORITY CHAIRWOMAN DAVIDSON: Thank you for your
4 testimony today. Once again, and I hate to keep
5 sounding -- or beating the same drum, but your testimony
6 further clarifies that our election was free, fair,
7 accurate, and basically uniform and conducted with a great
8 deal of integrity by all the election officials and has
9 been reviewed over and over again with the same outcome.
10 And so I just thank you for your testimony, thank you for
11 your integrity, and thank you for the auditing services,
12 and really your look across the country to see the level of
13 efficiency provided in some states as compared with other
14 states. And I think one of the big outcomes of this
15 particular panel -- not the panel, but the hearing was that
16 pre-canvassing would really help in making sure that people
17 have confidence that the numbers that are being reported
18 actually happen during the course of the actual election,
19 and that there weren't nefarious numbers that appeared
20 after the fact, but that these were, in fact, numbers that
21 were counted and that people that voted prior to the
22 election through the mail-in balloting process.
23 So I think pre-canvassing is something that a
24 number of folks today identified as a way to increase
25 confidence in our elections and to make sure that we have
116
1 results reported much earlier as is done in other states,
2 like Arizona, Michigan, and even Florida, pre-canvassing is
3 done, so that we have the results early. So thank you so
4 much for your testimony.
5 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN SCHEMEL: Thank you,
6 Chairwoman. And although Chairman Grove is not here, he's
7 with us in spirit in the form of a few questions that I
8 have at the end that represent his.
9 First, you referenced the U.S. Election
10 Assistance Commission report, which seemed to indicate that
11 as the sample size -- or as the number of ballots -- total
12 number of ballots grows, the sample size need not grow, it
13 would seem counterintuitive. It would seem as though the
14 more ballots you sample and audit, the more accurate the
15 results. Can you explain why that isn't necessarily the
16 case within the model that you apply?
17 DR. HOWARD: It -- I can put together some
18 information from some statisticians that can clarify that
19 answer, but it has to do with efficiency, right? Like,
20 we -- when you have large margins, you just need fewer
21 ballots to review. But we can provide you with some
22 additional information to clarify that.
23 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN SCHEMEL: Okay. Very good.
24 And the last two are more questions are more -- or
25 question -- are requests for information. One, the Stein
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1 settlement agreement has been referenced here today in
2 written testimony, particularly its requirement of enhanced
3 audit procedures to be used by the 2022 election.
4 Deputy Secretary Marks, can you consult with the
5 Department of State legal counsel and get us detailed
6 information on what types of audits would comply with this
7 requirement? Because we obviously don't have the terms of
8 the settlement agreement. But if you could contact the
9 counsel for the Department of State and see if we could
10 find out what sorts of audits would comply with the
11 agreement would be helpful.
12 MR. MARKS: Sure. I will absolutely consult with
13 our legal counsel.
14 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN SCHEMEL: Good. And finally in
15 regards to Ms. Howard's comments, she had referenced from
16 her written testimony, it says, the Legislature should also
17 consider requiring local election officials to comply with
18 procedures promulgated by the Department of State to ensure
19 that statewide elections can be audited efficiently.
20 And Representative Grove's question is, we have
21 yet to see any procedures promulgated by the Department.
22 How can we adopt something that we don't know -- that we
23 don't know if it exists? So I guess maybe I put that in
24 the form of a question. How do we -- if the legislature is
25 going to examine how to make modifications to the law, and
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1 those are going to include guidance and so forth that's
2 given by the Department of State, how do we include that?
3 DR. HOWARD: I mean, I assume that if you
4 instruct the Department to draft them they will do so.
5 MR. MARKS: Yeah. And I wanted to say that if
6 you read our report both first year and second year of the
7 work group, we are going to be making specific
8 recommendations. You know, that's one of the primary roles
9 of the work group -- the members of the work group, and
10 these pilots really inform that. And we're going to be
11 making specific recommendations, not only about, you know,
12 what is the best type of audit, you know, in our opinion,
13 but also what is the best way to administer that and what
14 kind of procedures have to be put in place.
15 You know, when I heard Dr. Hall and Ms. Verelst
16 testifying early -- and it's come up even in questioning
17 from a lot of the representatives on this committee about
18 uniformity. You know, again, one of the big limitations
19 right now of the current statutory process is, each county
20 is doing its statistical sample independent of every other
21 county, and there is some lack of uniformity. They're
22 certainly all complying with the election code, which is a
23 very broad requirement.
24 But in terms of the procedures and the tools and
25 the methodology, I think, you know, having something at a
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1 statewide level -- you know, having a single procedure I
2 think is beneficial, not only from, you know, a public
3 perception perspective but also from the perspective of
4 county election officials. I know you only heard from two
5 of them today, but from I've heard, a lot of other county
6 election officials agree, as well.
7 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN SCHEMEL: All right. Thank
8 you. When can we expect to see those recommendations, the
9 full reports, and the accompanying information that comes
10 with them, the data and the details?
11 MR. MARKS: Well, we can certainly provide the
12 two reports that have already been issued by the work
13 group. In terms of the specific recommendations, I hate to
14 put a date on anything and have to back pedal on that, but
15 that is something that the work group members are working
16 in earnest now. We just had a meeting a few days ago.
17 We'll have another meeting here very shortly, and we'd
18 really like to -- you know, the plan is the first half of
19 this year to get together, you know, very specific
20 recommendations from the work group that have been agreed
21 upon by at least the majority of the members, hopefully all
22 of them.
23 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN SCHEMEL: Very good. Thank
24 you.
25 I think we have no further questions. We are
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1 very grateful for your time today in testifying.
2 And then Chairwoman Davidson, do you have any
3 closing remarks for today's hearing?
4 MINORITY CHAIRWOMAN DAVIDSON: No.
5 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN SCHEMEL: All right. Thank
6 you.
7 I'd like to thank all of our testifiers for their
8 time today as well as the members for your questions and
9 patience. These hearings will continue to help inform the
10 Committee on where Pennsylvania's strengths and weaknesses
11 are concerning our election system and put the Committee in
12 the best position to recommend changes to our election law
13 and election processes. Thank you.
14 And with that this hearing of the House State
15 Government Committee stands adjourned.
16
17 (Hearing adjourned 4:09 p.m.)
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1 C E R T I F I C A T E
2 I hereby certify that the foregoing proceedings
3 are a true and accurate transcription produced from
4 audio on the said proceedings and that this is a
5 correct transcript of the same.
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7 Amanda R. Ricker Transcriptionist 8 Opti-Script, Inc.
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