May 16th 2026

4000 Ballot Hand Count Audit

At the April 11th, 2026 GOP state assembly, delegates were unhappy that the vote was counted by machines, and overwhelmingly demanded the ballots be impounded for a future hand count audit.

 

The audit happened a month later, where approximately 70 volunteers counted 4248 ballots in five hours start-to-finish, which included creating a double-checked, final, physical, auditable record of the count, showing the chain of custody for every ballot. Batching and tallying took 3 hours 40 minutes reaching speeds of 1100 ballots per hour, or a ballot tabulated every three seconds.

 

This hand count was a test of the method with extreme numbers of ballots, about three times as many as the largest precinct in Arapahoe would expect this November, and about ten times as much as the average precinct would expect for the primary. The hand count showed that the formula 

Ballots = 12 * people * hours

is a good estimate of how many ballots can be handled by a particular number of people in a particular time.

 

Mouse over the pictures below to read what's going on in each picture; double-click on a picture to increase the size. Check back soon for video and detailed report.