A manual audit conducted pursuant to this section shall conform to the rules of this chapter.
After each General and Special election, the Executive Director shall conduct a public manual audit of at least:
The manual audit shall entail counting of ballots cast on the machines selected for the audit and comparing the results of this count with the results shown by the results tape produced by the machine used to tabulate those ballots during the election.
The Executive Director shall take appropriate measures to ensure that spoiled or defective ballots are not tallied as valid ballots in the manual audit process.
The manual audit shall be:
At least one precinct from each ward shall be selected for participation in the audit. The precincts audited shall be selected randomly from each ward, such that each precinct in a ward shall have an equal chance of being selected for the manual audit.
The Executive Director may select additional precincts in his or her discretion.
The contests subject to the manual audit shall be publicly selected at random and shall include:
If there is no District-wide contest in an election, the Executive Director shall select sufficient ward-wide contests to adequately verify machine results.
In addition to the randomly-selected contests described in § 812.8, the Executive Director shall select at least one additional contest for audit. Additional contest(s) audited may be selected due to allegations of voting equipment anomalies, requests from candidates, random sampling, or other factors at the discretion of the Executive Director. If additional contest audits are performed as a result of a candidate request, the Board shall determine whether such audit is material to the outcome of the election and may impose a fee paid by the requesting candidate to the Board. The amount of the fee imposed shall not be greater than the actual cost of conducting the audit for the additional contest. The Board's rejection of a request for an audit shall not preclude a candidate from petitioning for a recount pursuant to §815.
Individuals performing the manual audit shall not be informed of the corresponding machine tally results at any time before or during the manual audit.
Individuals performing the manual audit shall be assembled into teams of at least four individuals such that there will be one person to call the ballot result, at least two persons to tally the ballot result, and at least one person to witness the process.
Each audit team shall be provided with a set of ballots associated with a machine that has been selected for the audit and advised as to which contest they are responsible for auditing.
The audit team shall make a record of vote marking errors, including the nature of the marking error, and how the vote was interpreted, if voter intent could be determined pursuant to the rules specified in §803.
If the initial manual audit reveals a discrepancy between the machine result and the manual audit tally result which yields an error rate greater than one quarter (0.25) of a percent of votes cast in the contest being audited, or twenty percent (20%) of the margin of victory (whichever is less), and such discrepancy is not attributed to marking errors, a second manual shall be conducted by the same team.
If the second manual audit confirms the discrepancy described in Subsection 812.15, the Board shall randomly-select another precinct in each ward in which the contest appeared on the ballot and audit:
If the additional precinct manual audit confirms the discrepancy described in Subsection 812.15, the Board shall audit all ballots cast in the contest.
The results derived from the manual audits shall be considered the true and correct results of the election contests at issue.
All machines found to have an error rate greater than that referenced in Subsection 812.15 shall be examined and repaired before they may be used in future elections.
The Executive Director or his or her designee shall include a report, which shall be made public on its website, on the results of the manual audit before the certification of the official election results. Such report shall:
D.C. Mun. Regs. tit. 3, r. 3-812