Elections & terms
risk-limiting audit
A statistical hand count of a sample of paper ballots, large enough to give strong confidence that the reported winner actually won.
In full
Rather than recounting a fixed percentage, a risk-limiting audit draws ballots until the evidence supports the outcome at a chosen confidence level, expanding to a full hand count if it does not. The closer the margin, the more ballots are needed. It requires a voter-verified paper record and good chain of custody to mean anything.
Also written as: post-election audit
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A plain-language explanation for civic education, not legal advice. When in doubt, the official source named above controls.