SENATE STATE GOVERNMENT, WAGERING, TOURISM & HISTORIC PRESERVATION COMMITTEE

STATEMENT TO

SENATE, No. 3853

STATE OF NEW JERSEY

DATED:  JUNE 19, 2025

      The Senate State Government, Wagering, Tourism & Historic Preservation Committee reports favorably Senate Bill No. 3853.

This bill revises procedures governing the audits of election results.  These changes include permitting post-election audits to be conducted by independent third-party electronic machines that are not in any way associated with the official ballot tabulation system for the election, instead of a hand-to-eye count.

     This bill eliminates certain requirements that audit procedures designed, adopted, and implemented by the audit team be implemented to ensure certain percentages of statistical power that a 100 percent manual recount of the voter-verifiable paper records would not alter the electoral outcome reported by the audit.  Instead, post-election audit procedures will be published prior to elections and will be subject to public comment.