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    November 4, 2025 Risk-Limiting Audit Report

    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. 
      • ✅Candidate Totals by Batch: a spreadsheet showing the results of the contest associated with each batch in the Ballot Manifest. 
    • ✅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. 
      • Publishing the hash for a file used in an RLA allows audit observers to use the same hashing algorithm and compare their hash value against the original one published. Being able to generate the same hash value provides assurance that 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. View detailed results of the 2025 Municipal Election risk-limiting audit.
    • ✅Counties certify their results in late November.