Notice of Continuation of Risk-Limiting Audit for the April 12, 2022, Special Election

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The Sonoma County Registrar of Voters Office will continue conducting a post-election audit of randomly selected ballots as a check of the ballot counting equipment on Tuesday, April 26, 2022, beginning at 9:00 a.m. at the Registrar of Voters Office, 435 Fiscal Dr., Santa Rosa.

The audit will continue daily on weekdays (excluding holidays) at the same location, from 8 a.m. until 5 p.m., except for breaks and lunch hours, unless otherwise posted. Observers are welcome to observe the tally.

Background

The risk-limiting audit began on Monday, April 18, 2022, with the rolling of dice to obtain a 20-digit number – a.k.a. random seed. The seed was entered into VotingWorks, an open-source software designed for conducting risk-limiting audits. After a Ballot Manifest and Cast Vote Record were also loaded into the software, a list of thirty-five ballots and their storage locations was generated. Said ballots were then retrieved and distributed between two audit boards, who tallied the votes.

However, since one of the ballots selected was from the so-called “placeholder batch” – a batch consisting of ballots that had not yet been counted – the audit had to be paused for a little over a week until all remaining ballots were counted.