2020 Presidential General Election Manual Audit - February 24, 2021 at 9:00 AM
The Cecil County Board of Elections will conduct a manual audit of the 2020 Presidential General Election starting on Wednesday, February 24, 2021 at 9:00 AM. This audit may take more than one day to complete and will continue daily until finished. The audit will take place at the Cecil County Administration Building, in the Elk Room, located at 200 Chesapeake Boulevard in Elkton, Maryland.
This audit is open to the public, however, social distancing guidelines will be adhered to, which may include limiting the number of people who can view the audit at one time, keeping public viewers six feet apart from others, and requiring the use offacemasks at all times. Due to these restrictions, public viewing of the Manual Audit will also be available via live-stream. A link to view the live-stream will be provided on the Cecil County Board of Elections website and Facebook page.
The Cecil County Board of Elections will manually tally a sample of votes cast for President/Vice President ofthe United States and compare the results of the manual tally against the results from the voting system. This process will determine whether the voting system accurately counted ballots during the 2020 Presidential General Election2.
Cecil County currently has one early voting center and the State Board of Elections randomly selected the Election Day vote center to be audited. During the Mail in Ballot and Provisional Canvasses, ballots were randomly selected for the manual audit. Starting on Wednesday, February 24, 2021 at 9:00 AM, the Cecil County Board of Elections will manually tally the votes for President/Vice President of the United States on:
1. 821 ballots cast on one scanning unit on the first day of early voting in the Elk Room at the Cecil
County Administration Building
2. 2924 ballots cast on Election Day at Perryville High School (Election Day Vote Center 04)
3. 1S mail in ballots
4. 15 provisional ballots
1See Election Law Article, ยง 11-309 of the Annotated Cade of Maryland. This requirement introduced as
House Bill 1278 of the 2018 Legislative Session and is reported as Chapter 523 of the 2018 Laws of
Maryland.
2Before the 2020 General Election was certified, the State Board of Elections conducted an automated
audit of all the ballots cast in the 2020 General Election. The results of this audit confirmed the accuracy
of the voting system. The results of the automated audit are at
https://elections.maryland.gov/voting_system/ballot_audit_plan.html