Section 3-177-762 - Electronic voting system; auditing(a) The chief election officer or the clerk shall conduct an audit of a random sample of not less than ten per cent of the precincts employing the electronic voting system, to verify that the electronic tallies generated by the system in those precincts equal hand tallies of the paper ballots generated by the system in those precincts.(1) The manual audit may be conducted by election officials or by counting center officials;(2) Except for designated election officials, counting center officials, or official, observers, no person shall be permitted to witness the audit without the authorization of the chief election officer, clerk, or designated representative. The area in which, the audit is conducted shall be kept secure;(3) Observers may request to conduct a manual audit;(4) Whenever ballots are removed from storage, the handling of the ballots shall be witnessed by not less than two representatives who. are riot of the same political party or official observers;(5) Election officials and. counting center-officials shall certify the conduct of and results of the manual audit; and(6) The manual audit shall not be considered a recount pursuant to the election contest provisions of the law.(b) In the event discrepancies are found in the audit, the chief election officer may authorize an expanded audit to determine the extent of misreporting within the system. (1) The chief election officer may use official observers, election day officials, county or state election employees, or other designated individuals as part of the expanded audit.(2) The chief election officer will determine when the expanded-audit is concluded.(3) The results of the expanded audit will be filed with the office of elections.(c) In lieu of relying on the initial results from an electronic voting system, the chief election officer may count ballots or voter verifiable paper audit, trails by hand or with a mechanical tabulation system, or a combination thereof. (1) Any counting of ballots or voter verifiable paper audit trails, through the use of a mechanical tabulation system, will conform to the marking and vote disposition rules relating to the voting system that the ballot or voter verifiable paper audit trails were associated with. (A) As the marksense ballot voting system, is a mechanical tabulation system, and the ballots were intended to be read by the devices associated with that system, the chief election officer, will to the extent possible, use those voting devices of the system that did not experience misreporting problems; and(B) In the event there are inadequate voting equipment that did not experience misreporting problems, the chief election officer, in consultation with the official observers, may use voting equipment that have been repaired to the satisfaction of the chief election officer.(2) Any counting by hand of ballots or voter verifiable paper audit trails will conform to the marking and vote disposition rules relating to the voting system that the ballot or voter verifiable paper audit trails were associated with. (A) Ballots that were marked for use by a marksense ballot voting system, will be counted in accordance with those rules associated with that system to the extent reasonably possible. Any hand count of marksense ballots will not use any statute or rules associated with the paper ballot voting system, as those marking instructions and vote disposition rules are uniquely different from those statutes and rules associated with other voting systems; and(B) Voter verifiable paper audit trails from a direct recording electronic device voting system will be counted in accordance with the ballot selections indicated on them.(d) The chief election will to the extent possible, resolve any misreporting problem, prior to the end of the contest period stated in HRS § 11-173.5, in the case of a primary, or special primary election, or HRS § 11-174.5, in the case of a general, special general, or special election. Any resolution of a misreporting problem shall be documented and filed with the office of elections.(e) "Precinct" for purposes of this rule, consistent with HAR § 3-177-57, refers to the ballot type that corresponds to the manner in which results are reported (i.e. if results are reported by state representative district-precinct, such as DP 17-01, then the ballot type associated with DP 17-01 is the applicable precinct for auditing purposes).[Eff JUL 26 2020] (Auth: HRS § 11-4, 52 USC § 21081) (Imp: HRS §§ 11-4, 11-108, 11-153, 16-2, 16-41, 16-42, 52 USC § 21081)