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of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania

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    Auditing Election Results

    After every primary and general election in Pennsylvania, counties conduct two different types of audits to ensure the reported election outcomes are correct. Both audits occur before any results are certified.

    Verifying the Results of Every Election

    After every primary and general election--and before any results are certified--Pennsylvania's counties conduct two separate, distinctly different types of audits:

    1. 2% statistical recount. Required by state law, the 2% statistical recount occurs in each county. During this audit, county boards of elections pull a random sample of either 2% of all ballots cast in all races OR a random sample of 2,000 ballots, whichever number is fewer. 
    2. Statewide risk-limiting audit (RLA). RLAs are are scientifically designed procedures that use statistical methods to confirm election outcomes. RLAs examine a random sample of paper ballots, comparing the votes on paper to the totals reported by the vote-counting machines to ensure that the reported outcome of the contest being audited is correct. These types of audits can confirm that voting systems tabulated the paper ballots accurately enough that a full hand count would produce the same outcome.

     

    Current Statewide RLA in Pennsylvania

    For the 2025 Municipal Election, Department of State staff randomly selected the Judge of the Superior Court (Retention) - Dubow contest for audit during a livestream on Nov. 7, 2025. View the livestream of the RLA  contest selection.

    To complete this audit before counties certify their results in late November, here are the steps election officials will take. Checkmarks will be added when each step is complete. 

    • ✅Counties create two documents:
      • ✅Ballot Manifest: a spreadsheet showing the number of ballots counted and details on how the ballots are organized and stored. Ballot Manifests for all counties will be viewable when ready. 
      • ✅Candidate Totals by Batch: a spreadsheet showing the results of the contest associated with each batch in the Ballot Manifest. Candidate Totals by Batch for all counties will be viewable when ready. 
    • ✅The two documents are uploaded to an open-source audit software tool called Arlo, which is used to administer the RLA. Arlo hashes each Ballot Manifest and Candidate Totals by Batch document. Hashing is a technique digital security experts recommend to ensure the integrity of publicly available files used in an audit.
      • A hash is a digital fingerprint of a file, composed of a long sequence of letters and numbers. For instance, this is a SHA256 hash of the text "cat 12345": b909d0c25fa57f185b20be2b7eacb6d1f708f7109cafbc53306fbccae767f5c5
      • A hash provides assurance a file was not changed during the RLA. If someone alters even one character in a file, a newly produced hash for that file will be completely different from the file's original hash. 
      • When a hash for a file used in our RLA is published, the public can download the file, use the same hashing algorithm the Department used, and compare their hash against the Department's. Generating the same hash value provides assurance the files used in the audit weren't changed during the course of the audit.
    • ✅SHA256 hashes for the Ballot Manifest and Candidate Totals by Batch files being used in this audit will be placed here: 
      • Ballot Manifest Hash: 
        • 551c1d8f82f3f5311e1a73cd177257e793655daf899ce3df73f452f8684a780d
      • Candidate Totals by Batch Hash: 
        • b1db2a345b3b92693934a91c3308c2ad2a92bb9e64d2c946d4daf574eeae472b
    • ✅Department of State staff will generate a random 20-digit seed number during a livestreamed dice roll on Nov. 14, 2025. View the livestream of the RLA seed selection.
      • Seed Number:03225869075182459787   
    • ✅That seed number will be entered into Arlo, the audit software, which will use it to select the random list of ballot batches for specific counties to retrieve. The list of counties randomly chosen by Arlo will be listed here:
      • Allegheny 
      • Bucks
      • Centre
      • Chester
      • Erie
      • Luzerne
      • Northampton
      • Philadelphia
      • Wayne
    • ⬛Officials in selected counties will retrieve the selected batches of ballots and hand tally the results in those batches, then enter the results into Arlo.
    • ⬛Arlo then analyzes the results and produces a final audit report that will confirm whether the reported outcome of the 2025 Municipal Election is correct.
    • ⬛Counties certify their results in late November.

     

    About Risk-Limiting Audits in Pennsylvania

    County election officials, Department of State staff, and election experts from the Brennan Center for Justice at NYU School of Law, National Vote at Home Institute, Verified Voting and VotingWorks participated in developing and implementing Pennsylvania’s RLA pilot program, which began in 2019.

    Read the RLA reports the Department created:

    After three years of performing RLA pilots, the Department of State provided a report on risk-limiting audits and in September 2022 directed all Pennsylvania counties to participate in a statewide RLA for every primary and general election beginning with the Nov. 8, 2022, general election.

    Each county's certified voting system provides a voter-verifiable paper record of each vote cast, meets the latest standards of security and accessibility, and can be thoroughly audited. 

    Every voting system and paper ballot in Pennsylvania must include plain text that voters can read to verify their choices before casting their ballot, and every system has successfully completed penetration testing, access-control testing and testing to ensure that every access point, software and firmware are protected from tampering. Many other important recommendations by national security and cybersecurity experts are in place in Pennsylvania, including mandatory pre-election testing of all voting equipment.