Latah, Clearwater among eight counties to undergo election audits

The Idaho State Board of Canvassers randomly selected eight Idaho counties on Friday that will participate in a post-election audit of paper ballots.

Using a tumbler and wooden tiles marked with different numbers during a public meeting Friday at the Idaho State Capitol in Boise, state officials selected Latah, Bingham, Elmore, Bear Lake, Custer, Minidoka, Clearwater and Jerome counties for the 2024 post-general election audit.

“Today we will kick off — over the course of the next week and a half — where we will send out teams of auditors across the state to go do hand counting, to go through the paper ballots,” Idaho Secretary of State Phil McGrane said Friday.

“And this is all part of just our reconciliation process to make sure that we can have confidence that the votes that were shown on election night match the votes that we find.”

Idaho law has required election results audits since 2022

The audits are required by Senate Bill 1274, which the Idaho Legislature passed unanimously in 2022.

Officials will audit at least 2,100 paper ballots in each of the counties selected Friday, McGrane said. After the counties were drawn, Idaho State Treasurer Julie Ellsworth randomly selected the precincts that will be audited in each county.

McGrane said the 2024 general election was one of the smoothest he has ever worked, even with Idaho setting a record for the total ballots cast at more than 917,000 ballots.

“This is really one of the successes for Idaho to show our work,” McGrane said.

The Idaho Secretary of State’s Office does not expect any recounts for the 2024 general election, with McGrane saying none of the election results fell within the 0.1% margin that qualifies for a free recount under state law.

After the audits are completed, the Idaho State Board of Canvassers will meet at 10 a.m. Nov. 26 at the Idaho State Capitol to officially certify Idaho’s 2024 general election results.

The fiscal note attached to Senate Bill 1274 estimated it would cost $50,000 per year per fiscal year to conduct election audits, except in presidential election years like this year, where the audit cost was estimated at $100,000 per year.

The Idaho Secretary of State’s Office received an initial $200,000 in funding for audits after the bill passed and $50,000 for audits in election years, said Chelsea Carattini, communications director for the Idaho Secretary of State’s Office. Carattini said she did not know exactly how much this year’s audits would cost because state officials just found out which counties they need to travel to in order to conduct the audits.

daho Capital Sun senior reporter Clark Corbin has more than a decade of experience covering Idaho government and politics. He has covered every Idaho