Election Audits?

Minnehaha County does not have election audits. Leah Anderson, an accountant and the Republican Candidate for Minnehaha Auditor, gives us her take why audits are important.

The auditor is a watchdog and not a bloodhound — Lord Justice Topes

Properly designed post-election audits can find counting errors and correct them, deter fraud, provide data to improve election administration, improve transparency, and promote public confidence in elections. 

An election audit should:

• be conducted before official results are certified

• catch and reverse an incorrect election outcome

• keep the audit trail complete and intact

• Include manual inspection of paper ballots, not electronic media

• have a truly random sample of individual ballots

• include provisions for counting more ballots until there is strong evidence of a correct outcome

• be transparent (open to witnesses or broadcast online)

• be mandatory

And contrary to popular belief, an audit does not have to be incredibly costly, disruptive, or take a long time. In fact, with modern technology, audits can be conducted relatively rapidly. 

Minnehaha County does not have post election audits. With over 29 years of accounting experience and a lot of expertise with audits, this is a place I could put my background to work quickly. If I am elected auditor, I will work hard to bring auditing to our election procedures.

Thanks, Leah