Mercer County is conducting a risk-limiting post-election audit for the first time in Pennsylvania. 

A working group assembled at the Mercer county courthouse on Monday to perform the post-election audit.   It's described as a scientifically designed procedure that utilizes math and statistical data to confirm election outcomes.

"They've found out a way to use the math to provide a statistical certainty that the results that we are reporting accurately reflect that's what the voters did," said Mercer County Elections Director Jeff Greenburg.
"The math is maybe a little complicated for the average person until you get kind of hands-on experience, and that's really what we're doing here today," according to Jonathan Marks, Deputy Secretary of Elections for Pennsylvania.

 Pennsylvania has returned to a paper ballot, and the risk-limiting audit is viewed as another step forward for voter confidence and election integrity.

"We want people to have confidence they've verified their ballot, and we also want them to have confidence in the post-election counting of those ballots," Marks said. 
Ohio Secretary of State, Frank LaRose, says he is a firm believer in post-election audits, and it fact has ordered every Ohio county to conduct an audit.

"As long as you do post-election audits, that's a step in the right direction, so every county in Ohio is going to do audits after this November election and then going forward into the future," LaRose said.

LaRose says not all audits in Ohio are the risk-limiting procedure being used in Pennsylvania, but all Ohio counties must complete the audit within 21 days after results are certified.