Sarasota County Charter, January 2019

January 2019 edition 24 machine counts. The audits shall be conducted on Election Day or within 24 hours after the closing of the polls, in clear public view, by a reputable, independent and nonpartisan auditing firm. These audits shall be conducted for a minimum of 5% of Sarasota County precincts, for 100% of the ballot issues in the selected precincts; and for a minimum of 5% of the total ballots cast in Early Voting periods, 5% of the total absentee ballots, and 100% of any precinct where there are highly unusual results or events. In addition, audits of 5% of Provisional ballots shall be completed by the 3 rd day following the election, and audits of 5% of Military and Overseas (UOCAVA*) ballots shall be completed within 24 hours of a primary election and within 10 days following a general election. The random selection of precincts to be audited shall be made in a physical, non-electronic, public drawing at the Supervisor of Elections Office only AFTER machine tallies from the precincts have been made public. This public drawing shall be made on an entirely random basis using a uniform distribution in which all precincts in the County have an equal chance of being selected. If machine counts are unavailable for any reason, the voter verified paper ballots shall be counted by hand by the independent auditors and recorded as the vote count for that precinct. Immediately upon completion of an audit, the persons conducting the audit shall furnish a copy of the audit to the Supervisor of Elections and the Board of County Commissioners and post the results for public view and copying at the Supervisor of Elections Office. The audit shall be considered a Florida public record pursuant to Florida Statute 119. ( *Uniformed and Overseas Citizens Absentee Voting Act. ) (3) Certification of Election Results. No election shall be certified until the mandatory audits are complete and any cause for concern about accuracy of results has been resolved. Any discrepancies between machine counts and hand counts greater than 1% or, if less than 1% but sufficient to change the outcome of any measure, shall initiate a comprehensive manual audit of the voter verified paper ballots in all precincts and of all Absentee, Provisional, and Military and Overseas (UOCAVA) ballots. Such comprehensive manual audit shall be completed within 5 days after the election, with the exception of comprehensive audits of Military and Overseas