As the old saying goes, “An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure,” as I know myself.

You can get more than an ounce of prevention by participating in a post-election process audit. It's much easier to fix process problems early on, before they explode and become problems that require litigation or other messy fixes. Ahead of the 2024 elections, state legislatures should mandate audits of the entire process to ensure transparency and build confidence in elections.

As lead auditor, I was responsible for developing and leading the first round of process audits for the state of Texas. 2020 General Election. The purpose of the audit program was not to uncover fraud, but to provide quality assurance to voters by verifying that election laws and procedures were followed. (Related: Marshall Trigg: Here's how to actually stop election fraud)

We audited four counties. Together, these counties have a population roughly the same as the state of North Carolina. Although no counties were error-free (it would be shocking if there were), two counties did relatively well and two did not. We've found many easily fixable issues that can significantly improve election accuracy and improve your voting experience.

Conventional wisdom says that post-election performance reviews are important; A whopping 86% of Americans believe all election offices should undergo complete performance reviews and audits on a regular basis. An audit of the 2020 election found that Harris County, the nation's third-largest county and home to Houston, failed to demonstrate proper storage of approximately 185,000 ballots.

Several states have begun audit programs..Texas passed series of audits and recently released new report For the second round. Mississippi State Starts Program Audit will begin soonother states are also participating.

There are different types of post-election audits. Most people don't think about process audits at first.

Instead, they are thinking about traditional vote audits that verify that vote counting was done correctly. This can be done by re-submitting a subset of the ballots to the tabulation tool. Alternatively, this could be done through a limited manual recount of specific races and ballots to ensure accuracy of results.

most states This is done in some way, either through audits that limit risk, or through direct counting of a fixed number of ballots.

A process audit takes a closer look to ensure election officials are following the rules. This requires a thorough investigation of all election records. If election workers are doing their jobs, and most are, election records will show it.

Process audits can reveal a lot about how elections work. Texas focused on several key areas.

Initially, we wanted to make sure our books were balanced. In other words, we wanted to make sure the number of ballots counted matched the number of attendees. I found some inconsistencies here. In one particularly alarming case, it was discovered that Dallas County was not counting all of its voting locations.

Equally alarming, Harris County found 34 polling places where the number of voters logged in to vote by the poll book differed from the audit log reflecting the number of votes counted.

Voting equipment security is always a top concern, and process audits can help authorities ensure they are properly securing voting equipment. For individual equipment, records are required that show every event in the machine's lifecycle.

We investigated when equipment was purchased, programmed, tested, and sealed, when it was unsealed, and when the machine was no longer in use. From this timeline, you can identify security vulnerabilities and close them.

There are many other items that can be reviewed in a process audit. Audits can confirm that signatures on mail-in ballots were consistently verified in accordance with state law and best practices. Depending on state law, mail-in voting records may be inspected for the following signs: smuggling of ballots.

Provisional ballots, which are cast as replacements when there is doubt about a voter's eligibility, are also where a robust procedural audit can be helpful. Processing provisional ballots is complicated.

A review of the record could show that voters were asked to provide provisional ballots when they should have been given a regular vote. It's also possible that a voter might find out they received a regular ballot when they should have cast a provisional ballot.

A review of Texas records shows that handling provisional ballots requires election officials to be more careful in record-keeping.

Post-election process audits are the best way to ensure election officials are following proper procedures. Our audit in Texas revealed many flaws in a good election process that election officials have learned from and worked to correct.

That's why this type of audit should be required in every state.

Chad Ennis is the Vice President of the Honest Elections Project.

The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not reflect the official position of the Daily Caller News Foundation.

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