On August 31, 2008, the California Fourth District Court of Appeal held that the Secretary of State had the authority to institute Post-Election Manual Tally (PEMT) Requirements but should have done so using the procedures for adoption of regulations in the Administrative Procedures Act. The Secretary of State replaced the original October 25, 2007, Post-Election Manual Tally Requirements with the October 20, 2008, Emergency Regulations on Post Election Manual Tallies.

• Proposed Readoption of Emergency PEMT Regulations
• PEMT Emergency Regulations

In 2007, Secretary of State Debra Bowen created a Post-Election Audit Standards Working Group to examine a variety of post-election audit models and consider the advantages and disadvantages of various models and procedures. The group reported to Secretary Bowen the options for developing and implementing auditing requirements that could enhance the reliability of election results, as well as suggested guidelines and procedures for reconciling manual audit and machine count results. The Working Group submitted the following report to the Secretary of State:

• Post-Election Audit Standards Report - Evaluation of Audit Sampling Models and Options for Strengthening California's Manual Count - July 27, 2007

The Secretary of State adopted PEMT standards and requirements.

• PEMT Requirements - October 25, 2007 (.pdf, 56KB)
• PEMT Suggested Instructions - January 30, 2008 (.pdf, 1.3MB)
• County PEMT Reports by Election

Documents related to the Working Group.

Copyright ©2008 California Secretary of State. Privacy Statement