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ASA Board Calls for Audits To Increase
Confidence in Electoral Outcomes
T
he importance of ensuring accurate election results and the scientific and social issues in which statisticians and the statistical
critical role of statistics in doing so were affirmed by the sciences can make significant contributions,” said Ron Wasserstein,
ASA Board of Directors at its meeting on March 7, 2008. ASA executive director. The board’s statement can be viewed in its
Board members adopted a position statement on election integrity, entirety below.
calling on the federal government to take actions, including elec- ASA President Tony Lachenbruch and the ASA Board of
tion audits, that would assure greater levels of voter confidence in Directors acknowledged the outstanding efforts of biostatistician
electoral outcomes. Arlene Ash—research professor of medicine and public health at
The specific actions recommended by the board include con- the Boston University School of Medicine—members of the ASA’s
ducting broader research into the integrity of elections, providing Scientific and Public Affairs Advisory Committee, and others for
tools to help election officials conduct high-integrity elections, and their leadership in the area of election integrity and their work in
recommending designs of acceptable ballots and procedures for providing the board with background on this topic. To read a sum-
testing those ballots on the actual machines that will be used to mary of the role statistics plays in elections, visit the June 2007
record the results. The statement also encourages state governments Amstat News web page at www.amstat.org/publications and read
to adopt routine monitoring of all electoral procedures to ensure the President’s Invited Column, written by David Marker, John
continuous quality improvement. Gardenier, and Arlene Ash. n
“The Statement on Election Integrity is an important example
of the ASA Board’s desire to speak out in a timely manner about key
.
The American Statistical Association
Position on Electoral Integrity
Adopted by the ASA Board of Directors
March 7, 2008
T
rustworthy elections demand integrity and extend existing research into the effects of
throughout the entire electoral process, various practices on the integrity of elections
from voting laws and regulations to details and disseminate tools that help voting officials
of implementation, including maintaining voter to efficiently conduct high-integrity elections. In
registration lists and a secure chain of custody for addition, the federal government should provide
voted ballots. All processes and data of U.S. elec- examples of acceptable and unacceptable ballot
tions should be subject to statistically sound, con- designs and specify procedures for adequate pre-
tinuous-quality monitoring and improvement. testing of ballots on the actual machinery to be
Data releases should be comprehensive and timely used in the election. The ASA encourages state
and follow standardized, readily analyzable for- governments to adopt routine monitoring of all
mats. It is critical that the integrity of central vote electoral procedures to ensure continuous quality
tabulations be confirmed by audits of voter- improvement. Certification of any electoral out-
verified hard-copy records in order to provide come should require substantiating evidence that
high—and clearly specified—levels of confidence the putative winner was the intended selection
in electoral outcomes. of the plurality of voters. Compelling statistical
The American Statistical Association recom- evidence of electoral failure should be accepted as
mends that the federal government synthesize a basis for judicial remedy.
12 AMSTAT NEWS APRIL 2008
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