Post-Election Audits
A post-election audit of votes from a random selection of 3% of all Massachusetts precincts is held after every general Presidential election. A public drawing of precincts is held within 48 hours of the close of Election Day polls.
Local election officials oversee a hand count of all selected ballots. Votes for the offices of electors for president and vice president, senator in Congress, representative in Congress, senator in General Court, and representative in General Court are counted for each precinct. Statewide ballot questions may also be randomly selected to be hand counted.
2020 Post-election Audit
The 2020 Post-Election Audit drawing took place at the Massachusetts Archives at 220 Morrissey Blvd. in Boston at 11 a.m. on Thursday, November 5, 2020. The selected precincts are listed below.
To conduct the post-election audit, local election officials oversaw a hand count of all ballots that had been counted through November 3, 2020. As required by law, the offices of Electors for President and Vice President, Senator in Congress, Representative in Congress, Senator in General Court, and Representative in General Court were counted in each precinct, if more than one candidate was printed on the ballot. A statewide ballot question, Question #1, also randomly selected during the drawing, was also counted.
The results of the post-election hand counts were reported by local election officials to the Secretary of the Commonwealth's Elections Division, along with the original tallies from Election Night for comparison.
An analysis of the results of the audit, as well as the underlying data provided by local election officials, may be found below.
| City / Town | Ward (if applicable) | Precinct |
|---|---|---|
| Arlington | 14 | |
| Ashby | 1 | |
| Ashland | 2 | |
| Attleboro | 3 | A |
| Barre | 1 | |
| Becket | 1 | |
| Beford | 1 | |
| Bedford | 3 | |
| Boston | 1 | 14 |
| Boston | 10 | 6 |
| Boston | 17 | 8 |
| Boston | 16 | 3 |
| Boston | 11 | 9 |
| Boston | 12 | 5 |
| Cambridge | 7 | 3 |
| Chelsea | 4 | 1 |
| Concord | 2 | |
| Dighton | 1 | |
| Duxbury | 6 | |
| Easton | 5 | |
| Foxborough | 2 | |
| Gardner | 1 | B |
| Greenfield | 1 | |
| Halifax | 2 | |
| Holyoke | 6 | A |
| Holyoke | 5 | B |
| Lakeville | 3 | |
| Lawrence | D | 3 |
| Lawrence | B | 2 |
| Leominster | 4 | A |
| Lowell | 11 | 3 |
| Marshfield | 5 | |
| Mashpee | 4 | |
| Milton | 5 | |
| Monroe | 1 | |
| Monson | B | |
| Needham | A | |
| New Bedford | 3 | E |
| New Bedford | 6 | D |
| Palmer | 1A | |
| Pembroke | 3 | |
| Pittsfield | 1 | B |
| Plainville | 1 | |
| Rehoboth | 3 | |
| Rockport | 2 | |
| Salem | 4 | 2 |
| Salisbury | 2 | |
| Saugus | 6 | |
| Saugus | 9 | |
| Sheffield | 1 | |
| Somerville | 3 | 3 |
| Springfield | 6 | B |
| Springfield | 6 | C |
| Taunton | 2 | B |
| Taunton | 3 | A |
| Taunton | 6 | B |
| Tyringham | 1 | |
| Wales | 1 | |
| Webster | 1 | |
| Westwood | 1 | |
| Woburn | 6 | 1 |
| Westwood | 1 | |
| Woburn | 6 | 1 |
| Worcester | 9 | 1 |
| Worcester | 1 | 4 |
| Worcester | 9 | 4 |
View the 2020 Post-Election Audit Report (PDF)
Download the 2020 Post-Election Audit Report Data (XLSX)
View the 2016 Audits