Kaicie Boeglin
Opinions Editor
The Rhode Island Board of Elections (RIBOE) has voted unanimously to certify the 2020 General Election results, confirming former Vice-President Joe Biden as the state’s winner.
After President-elect Joe Biden was announced the projected winner, the Rhode Island Board of Elections (RIBOE) received eleven requests for a vote recount. Out of the eleven requests only nine were qualified recounts. Rhode Island is one of five states that conducted a risk-limiting audit, which was mandated by state law.
A press release from the Board of Elections asserted that Rhode Island’s voting system is “tested thoroughly and publicly prior to each election.” RIBOE stated that the audits will “provide an additional verification of the accuracy of the voting system after the election.”
To conduct the audit, Rhode Island has partnered with non-profit organization VotingWorks who says that the statewide audit could require verification of less than 1,000 votes to verify the results. The Board of Elections also claims that the audit is designed to discover any irregularities in ballots which could have resulted from intentional cyber-attacks or ever printing errors.
The risk-limiting audit was conducted on November 23 and members of the public were allowed to witness the process. RIBOE says that the audit asserted the election results and confirmed that the state’s voting process was accurate and ‘free from error or manipulation.’
The vote, which was conducted via zoom, confirms that RI electors will cast their votes for Joe Biden on December 14. RIBOE Executive Director Robert Rapoza told WPRI that “This Board and all Rhode Islanders can be confident in the accuracy of these results, and everyone should be proud that the basic work of democracy – a transparent, efficient and accurate election was conducted even amidst an ongoing pandemic.”