Management Audit Committee advances election‑integrity bills after Weston County post‑election audit review

The Management Audit Committee reviewed a subcommittee report on the 2024 Weston County post‑election audit and advanced a package of bills aimed at clarifying post‑election audit procedures, increasing penalties for failing to comply with legislative subpoenas and adding the secretary of state as an authorized complainant in county‑officer removal proceedings.

LSO staff summarized the subcommittee’s findings: Weston County’s initial post‑election audit report filed after the November 2024 election reported no findings, but a later review identified machine‑reading errors. “The Western County clerk submission of the county's post election audit results to the secretary of state's office failed to identify 21 instances of machine reading errors in a random sample of 75,” LSO staff said. That sample, and subsequent hand counts, exposed votes not counted in the original tabulation; the subcommittee report stated those errors led to a widespread misclassification of votes and cited a resulting undervote figure in the order of 1,279…