Auditing Hamiltonian Elections

Efficiently Auditing Multi-Level Elections

In a multi-level election, voters are divided into groups, an election is held within each group, and some deterministic procedure is used to combine the group results to determine the overall election result. Examples of multi-level elections include U.S. presidential elections and some parliamentary elections (such as those with regional groupings of voters). The results of such an election c...

A Bayesian Method for Auditing Elections

We propose an approach to post-election auditing based on Bayesian principles, and give experimental evidence for its efficiency and effectiveness. We call such an audit a “Bayes audit”. It aims to control the probability of miscertification (certifying a wrong election outcome). The miscertification probability is computed using a Bayesian model based on information gathered by the audit so fa...

On Auditing Elections When Precincts Have Different Sizes

We address the problem of auditing an election when precincts may have different sizes. Prior work in this field has emphasized the simpler case when all precincts have the same size. Using auditing methods developed for use with equal-sized precincts can, however, be inefficient or result in loss of statistical confidence when applied to elections with variable-sized precincts. We survey, eval...

From Battlefields to Elections: Winning Strategies of Blotto and Auditing Games

Mixed strategies are often evaluated based on the expected payoff that they guarantee. This is not always desirable. In this paper, we consider games for which maximizing the expected payoff deviates from the actual goal of the players. To address this issue, we introduce the notion of a (u, p)-maxmin strategy which ensures receiving a minimum utility of u with probability at least p. We then g...

VIGRE Final Report: Election Auditing Simulations of Risk-Limiting Auditing Techniques and the Effects of Reducing Batch Size on the 2008 California House of Representatives Elections