PHILLIPSBURG, NJ - Today, New Jersey Secretary of State Tahesha Way, the New Jersey Division of Elections and election officials from Warren, Passaic, Sussex and Union counties took part in a pilot risk-limiting audit of voting machines used during the Jan. 22 Warren County special school election.

“As Secretary of State, I remain committed to supporting our counties as they pursue the latest in election technologies. The right to vote is the very foundation of our democracy, and my goal is to ensure New Jersey voters have complete confidence in the process, while making voting as accessible as possible,” Secretary Way said.

Risk-limiting audits have previously been conducted in Gloucester, Union, Essex and Mercer counties. The goal of these pilots is to introduce state and local officials to the terms and concepts of risk-limiting audits and understand how the process might work with the voting equipment being considered for purchase in New Jersey. During the audit, officials manually examined a random sample of voted paper ballots to provide strong statistical evidence that the outcome of the contest was correct.

The process for conducting the audit includes randomly selecting a sample of ballots based on the margin of victory for each race, locating each of the ballots selected for audit, and entering the selections from the voted ballot into audit software to be compared against the way the voting system interpreted and tallied the ballot. 

Representatives, including Acting Secretary of State Kathy Boockvar, from the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania were also on hand to observe today’s audit. 

The audit took place at the Warren County Library, 404 Route 519, Phillipsburg, NJ 08865.