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Virginia board selects 1st Congressional District for audit, sets 10% RLA risk limit
Summary
The State Board of Elections randomly selected Virginia’s 1st Congressional District for a post‑election risk‑limiting audit, directed staff to generate the random seed numbers, and set a 10% risk limit for that audit and the U.S. Senate RLA; both motions passed on roll call.
Chairman Jared O'Bannon and the Virginia State Board of Elections voted to randomly select the First Congressional District for a post‑election risk‑limiting audit and to set a 10% risk limit for that audit and an already‑approved U.S. Senate audit.
The board carried out the selection as prescribed by state law, with staff placing labeled canisters into an opaque container for a random draw. Matthew Abel, the Department of Elections’ election services senior adviser, explained the technical steps the office will take to make the selection reproducible: staff will generate a 20‑digit random seed by rolling a 20‑sided die 20 times and input that seed into the RLA software to determine which paper ballots are pulled for manual review. "This seed number is created by rolling a 10 sided die 20 times and recording each number," Abel said, describing how the software will use the seed to generate a sequence of ballots to retrieve.
The board also voted to direct elections staff to generate the seed numbers for the randomly selected congressional race and the U.S. Senate race. Staff then announced the die results and confirmed the 20‑digit sequences for software input. On the recommended risk limit, staff described a risk limit as "the maximum chance that the RLA will fail to correct an incorrectly reported outcome," and recommended the 10% rate used in prior Virginia RLAs; the board approved the recommendation in a roll‑call vote.
Elections staff told the board that the U.S. Senate RLA will begin at 10 a.m. on Wednesday, November 20, and that the randomly selected congressional RLA (District 1) will begin at 10 a.m. on Thursday, November 21. Staff said local electoral boards selected to participate will hold the hand‑count portions as public meetings at locations to be posted by the local general registrar's office.
The motions to (a) randomly select the congressional district, (b) direct staff to generate the random seed numbers, and (c) set the risk limit to 10% were each put by motion, seconded, and passed on roll call. The board recorded the selections and instructed staff to post notices with local meeting details.
What happens next: Elections staff will input the confirmed seed numbers into the RLA software, local electoral boards will conduct the public hand counts on the announced dates, and the State Board will receive notice and results as part of the certification process.
