The Clayton County Board of Elections and Registration will conduct a risk-limiting audit today (December 14) from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. at the South Clayton Recreation Center, 1837 McDonough Road, Hampton.
The RLA is required by the Georgia Secretary of State’s Office under state law. Elections officials will do a statistical check, based on a randomly-generated number from the state, of votes. They count that number of votes and compare the result to the number of votes cast in the race.
The count could be short if the randomly-generated number is small, or long if the number is large.
Should the sample size require more time to count, the process will resume on Thursday until the count is complete.
In this case, elections officials are checking the accuracy of the results from the December 6 general election runoff.
What happens during an RLA?
The public is invited to observe the process. Visitors must stand inside the designated viewing area and are not allowed to disrupt the proceedings in any way.
Visitors can expect to see elections officials bringing in ballots in secure boxes and zippered pouches. These are sealed with numbered plastic tamper-proof tags.
The elections workers carrying the boxes will read off the tag numbers to other worker, who keep track of which boxes are being opened on a list.
Other workers then count the ballots, raise a card to call over a supervisor if they have any questions, and write down the result of their count.
A three-person vote review panel, consisting of one Democrat, one Republican, and one Elections and Registration Board member, may review any ballot that is not marked clearly. Their job is to determine the voter’s intent when they cast their ballot. For example, a voter might have marked candidates from two parties in one race, but voted only for candidates from a single party in all other races on that ballot. The review panel would examine that ballot.
The the ballots are put back in the boxes, resealed with a new tag, checked back out, and returned to the secure location.
Last month, county elections officials did a risk-limiting audit on the Secretary of State’s race. Clayton County came back with 100% accurate results.
If you have questions, call the Clayton County Elections and Registration
Office at (770) 477-3372.
