MINUTES

                       City of Charlottesville Electoral Board
                            Meeting of February 24, 2021

The meeting was called to order by the Chair at 6:05 p.m. on Wednesday, February 24
in the Charlottesville Circuit Courthouse, 315 E. High Street, Lower Courtroom. Those
present were Electoral Board members Jon Bright (Chair), Anne Hemenway (Vice
Chair), and Jim Nix (Secretary), Deputy Registrar and Election Manager Taylor Yowell
and Clerk of the Charlottesville Circuit Court Llezelle Dugger.

On a motion by the Chair, seconded by the Secretary, the agenda was unanimously
approved with no changes.

Public Comment

Ms. Sue Lewis, a representative of the Charlottesville League of Women Voters and Mr.
James Moore representing the Charlottesville Republican Party were present as
observers for this meeting but made no comment. Mr. Jeremy Johnson of the
Charlottesville City Communications Department was also present to provide technical
assistance with video of the meeting.

Risk Limiting Audit

The sole item on the agenda for this meeting was the conduct of a Risk Limiting Audit of
the November 3, 2020 general election for President and U.S. Senate. This is a state-
wide audit in which the Charlottesville component consisted of withdrawing and hand
counting six ballots randomly selected by the firm Voting Works under contract to the
Virginia Department of Elections.

In preparation for the audit, Ms. Dugger had moved the boxes of counted ballots from
the November election from secure storage in the Courthouse to the Lower Court
Room. After the meeting had been called to order by the Chair, Ms. Yowell reviewed
the steps to follow in conducting the audit with the Chair and Vice Chair who would
serve as the members of the audit board. The ballots from the November 2020 election
had been placed into storage in 23 batches and the six randomly selected ballots were
identified to be in four of these batches.

Each of the selected ballots was retrieved by the audit board opening the sealed box
containing it and counting down to the designated ballot, which was then withdrawn,
marked with a preprinted label, and replaced in the stack by a green place holder. The
box was then resealed, and the selected ballot inserted in an envelope later to be hand
counted. One of the designated ballots was number 1763 in a batch of approximately

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3500 ballots. For retrieving that ballot an approved alternative was employed instead of
actually counting such a large number of ballots. This method, referred to as a K-cut, is
like the process of cutting a deck of cards. The stack of ballots was cut and restacked
six times in proportions directed by a random number program on a cell phone. With
this method the top ballot at the end of the process is designated as the selected ballot.
The process of withdrawing the ballots selected for audit and resealing the storage
boxes was completed in approximately one hour. The ballots were then hand counted
using standard tally sheets and the results entered by the audit board members into the
ARLO website to be merged with results from the other jurisdictions participating in this
state-wide audit.

The meeting was adjourned at 7:30 p.m.

The next meeting will be held in the office of the Charlottesville General Registrar
starting at 6:00 p.m. on Wednesday, March 3, 2021.


Respectfully submitted:



James Nix, Secretary



Jon Bright, Chair                                       Anne Hemenway, Vice Chair




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